On a Pale Horse
by HermitsUnited
Summary: Episode 4 in Virtual Season 5. The Doctor and Donna are together at last. Isn't it just sweet? Well, it isn't. Especially when, instead of going to the beach, they land in the darkest place possible - on Earth, long ago. And the Pale Horse is nigh...
1. The Unpredictable Convergence

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own it, I just live here. _

_**Continuity note:**__ This story is preceded by following episodes of "Doctor Who – The Virtual Series Five": _

_1 – "Past Future Continuous"_

_2 – "The Art of Forgetting"_

_3 – "The August Sky"_

_

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_

**DOCTOR WHO**

_THE VIRTUAL SERIES 5 – EPISODE 4_

**ON A PALE HORSE**

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**.1. The Unpredictable Convergence**

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A door of a blue police box squeaked and creaked open. A slim face, topped with a mop of brown, messy hair appeared in the gap. Large, dark eyes looked around cautiously. A pointed chin seemed to challenge the entire world outside.

"Well, _what_?"

The owner of keen eyes, messy hair and aggressive chin, irritably sucked the air, as Donna nudged him in the ribs, trying to widen the gap and to have her own peek outside. For a moment they struggled with the door – the Doctor trying to close it, Donna trying to open it ajar. Finally the Doctor gave up and stepped, or rather fell out of the TARDIS. His converses sunk deep into lush, wet, juicily green grass. Donna was next to jump out of the ship, catching her heel on the threshold and almost landing nose first on the living carpet full of chirping cicadas. Somehow she managed to regain her balance, grabbing the Doctor's elbow.

"It's not an unpredictable convergence of temporal streams," she announced, straightening up and smoothing a bottle green, deep cut tunic, exposing her cleavage and freckled shoulders. She walked away from the box in three long steps and turned on her heel, scrutinising the surroundings.

"Nor the end of the world, nor impossible-to-predict-time-space-location," she said folding her arms on her chest and giving the man a provocative glance. "It's not even Slough."

"Why... Why Slough? What has Slough ever done to you?" The Doctor unsuccessfully tried to save the remains of his honour.

"Green grass, blue sky, a singular, yellow sun; this is nettle, and over there, in the orchard, those are apple trees, without apples, unfortunately. And it's going to rain." Donna didn't intend to deny herself this tiny portion of spite. "Judging by gathered evidence, it is quite safe to say, that this is..."

"The Earth," the Doctor finished, resignation in his voice. He turned towards the TARDIS and gently patted her wooden camouflage. "And what's wrong with you again? Eh? What were all those turbulences for?"

"What's wrong with _her_?" Donna snorted. "You know what they say? A bad workman blames his flying box."

"What?" The Doctor looked at her, his eyebrows shooting upwards.

"How was she supposed to fly with an _ass_ for a _pilot_?" Donna chided.

"Donna!" Eyebrows went down and almost met above the narrow nose.

"You said you'd let me drive!" She shook her fiery mane. "You never let me drive!"

"Right, 'cause _you_ would land her _better_," the Doctor sneered.

"I don't know if you know, but women are much better drivers than men," Donna said angrily. "The number of accidents they cause is significantly lower. So is their insurance. And I'm sure I wouldn't get lost. We were going to the beach, right? Well, I can't see the sea anywhere, _mister Don't-Touch-The-Date-Selector_!"

"I didn't get _lost_!" the Doctor protested weakly.

"Where are we then?"

"_DonNA_!"

Nobody would bring the Doctor to boil as easily as Miss Noble.

"All right, I agree, we're on Earth. I have no idea why or when. The TARDIS is obviously damaged, we may be in serious trouble, so, fine, you're right, this is _not_ an unpredictable convergence," he scatted. "But it doesn't mean it's _not_ the end of the world."

"I'd be surprised if it wasn't." She shrugged. "It is _always_ the end of the world with you."

"With me?" The Doctor's eyes almost popped out from their sockets. "With _me_?! Now it's _my_ fault?! You know what, maybe you should find some other Time Lord to travel with. No, wait... _Last _of the Time Lords, remember?!"

"Yeeeah..." She pulled her most annoying face – head tilted to the side, eyes turned upwards, lips mouthing a mocking "O." Still cross, but slightly ashamed and amused at the same time, the Doctor turned on his heel, marched past Donna and started climbing the hill. Donna followed him with her gaze, a tiny, crooked smile on her lips.

The Doctor paused on the top of the hill, knee-deep in rippling grass. His slim figure was distinctly silhouetted against the sky. A cool wind was tugging at his coat's tails. Raising a hand the Doctor ruffled his hair. Donna knew this gesture all too well. Translated into words it would mean: "Eeerm... Umm... Oops."

"What?" Donna yelled over the whistling of the wind and chirruping of cicadas.

The Doctor turned towards her with vague expression on his face. "We're in the Middle Ages," he shouted back.

"Right, you should've parked her better!" Donna shouted.

"What?"

"The TARDIS!"

"_What_?!"

"So she wouldn't drift off to the Middle Ages!"

"What are you _talking_ about?!"

"Ooh, nothing really." She shrugged again, lowering her voice. "It only further confirms my theory that you can't be bothered listening to your own prattle."

"_DonNA_!" He was running downhill, coat fluttering.

"And what is it you don't like in the Middle Ages?" she snorted. "What's wrong with the Middle Ages? _I_ have never been to the Middle Ages."

"Donna Noble," he rapped out. "The Middle Ages. Trouble."

"Knights," she shot back. "Dames. Tournaments. King Arthur."

"What... What about King Arthur? Your King Arthur is a collection of myths; I've met the real King Arthur; trust me, you wouldn't want to meet King Arthur. Nor any of his Knights of the Round Table, which, _nota bene_, had all the chances of remaining a Square Table forever. And a courtly love was invented by the French, hundreds of years later."

Carried by sheer momentum, the Doctor reached the TARDIS's door and opened it ajar, urging Donna in with wide gestures. Donna's eyes narrowed for a second, full of dangerous sparks. She uncrossed her arms and rested her hands on her hips.

"When are you going to cut it out?"

"What?"

"I'm asking... When... Are you going... To _cut it out_?!"

"Cut what? Donna, stop it and listen to me for a..."

"_NO_!"

The Doctor let go of the TARDIS's door and turned to Donna. They glared at each other, their feet sunk into green carpet, cicadas and birds chirruping around them, wind humming above the valley. Clouds drifted slowly across the glorious summer sky.

"I'm not made of glass," Donna said finally.

"It's quite obvious," the Doctor said in an undertone.

"Nor sugar," Donna continued, her nostrils wide with fury.

He pulled a face. "Nooo, you're not _so_ sweet, definitely, no."

Donna didn't smile. "I won't _break_ and I won't _dissolve_!"

The Doctor kept his silence, his grin disappearing gradually.

"You don't have to make a fuss over me," Donna snorted. "You don't have to deny yourself all the pleasures and avoid all the risks just because of me. And if you think I'm such a dead weight, maybe you should take me back home, and find someone you can trust. Last time I've checked, I wasn't the _last_ human."

The Doctor slowly pushed his hands into the trousers' pockets. He fixed his large, dark eyes on Donna as if he saw her for the first time in his life. He opened his mouth to say something, but he just inhaled, touching the roof of his mouth with a tip of his tongue.

This irritated Donna even more. "If I'm just a trou..."

"I've almost lost you," the Doctor interrupted quietly and urgently.

"...ble... mmmhm...?" What was supposed to be an articulated word, maybe even a sentence, somehow got stuck in Donna's throat. "What?"

"Nothing. You're right. It's _just_ the Middle Ages, after all," the Doctor said quickly, taking his hands out of his pockets and almost running around Donna on some crazy orbit. "All right then. OK. Fine. C'mon, let's go through the wardrobe, I have _plenty_ costumes for the Middle Ages. Did I tell you about the time when I ran into Lionhart? Or Charles LeMagne in Ardennes? I think I still have those long-nosed turn-shoes... I won't put them on for me dear life, mind you... They were called seezms, or seeshms... or whatevertheirname. Anyway, there was that fashion; it came from Eastern Europe; so fashionable shoes had elbow length noses, you had to bind them to your knee, otherwise it was impossible to make a step, and then you looked completely ridiculous, cause when you walked you were sort of hopping, you know, hopping and hoping not to fall..."

Donna wanted to stop him at first, to say something really important, but in the Doctor's babble it suddenly didn't seem so important after all. She just shrugged her shoulders.

"Well I want a dress," she announced. "And a veil."

"Right, cause it'll be _fantastic_ for running," he commented, jumping on board the TARDIS. Donna followed him with a small, bright, triumphant smile.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	2. Bristol, AD 1348

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.2. Bristol, AD 1348**

* * *

"That's Bristol? Seriously? _Nooo_... Really?"

"That _is_ Bristol. See, the castle."

"There's a _castle_ in Bristol?"

The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair.

"No, just a moment, wait, not in the twenty first century, no. It's been demolished... sometime along the way... Can't remember when."

Donna was already pointing her finger at a stone structure in front of them.

"What about that bridge?"

"Oooh, a brilliant bridge, a fantastic bridge, shame it's not finished yet. One of the busiest commercial centres of the time."

"A medieval _Bluewater_?" Donna snorted.

"Exactly. Just like the London Bridge, non existent in your times, or the Ponte Vecchio over the Arno River in Florence, still open for tourists; there'll be shops, shops on both sides of the bridge; and houses above them – tall, multi-storey, timber houses. To save space on the bridge, they'll be jetting out over the river and over the road, propped with special supporting constructions. And there, just there, in the middle, there'll be the Chapel of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the largest chapel built on a bridge, with meeting rooms, and a bell-tower, and a crypt, and a gateway tunnelling..."

"_Now_ what? Why did we stop? A traffic jam?" Donna, who couldn't care less about all the details, cut in.

Up till now, they were picking their way among groups of people in great numbers heading for the town. Donna and the Doctor were passing oxcarts and peasants leading roped goats and swine, carrying bunches of wild fowl, brushwood, osier and herbs, bending under the weight of baskets full of fruit, and hauling unidentified packages of all shapes and sizes. The Doctor and Donna had been, in turn, overtaken by several horsemen, usually soldiers. Once they were passed by a lady dressed in furs and brocades, escorted by several armed men (Donna stared at her with pure envy, turning her face slightly green). Whole gangs of kids were running among the carts, goats and piglets, yelling and jumping over the piles of horses' manure, cows' dung and large puddles of rainwater.

Donna was surprised with traffic on that barely hardened, narrow road. And Bristol must have been a large town, since most of the people didn't even know each other. Donna and the Doctor didn't seem to rouse any interest, although the Doctor had emphatically refused to put on a chequered tunic and tight leggings (not to mention the seezms), and was marching energetically with his trusty coat billowing behind him. Donna suspected that there was some sort of Chameleon Circuit imbedded in the coat's fabric, as the Doctor would apparently fade into the background wherever they happened to land. She, on the other hand, was wearing a brown dress, with a yellow tunic thrown on top of it. She didn't get any veil, so she braided her hair in two, thick plaits. The Doctor tried to persuade her into wearing some sort of bass slippers, but she just scoffed at him. She agreed, however, to put on a leather belt, even more eagerly, as one of the purses attached to the belt jingled in a very promising way.

The crowd of travellers apparently got stuck at the town's gate. Piglets grunted and squealed, kids were pushing one another, and grown-ups grumbled, shifting from one foot to the other, or sitting down on the road-side. Donna, craning her neck, tried to spot a cause of the obstruction.

"What's that, then? A traffic jam?"

"I'd say it's a toll," the Doctor said. "You have to pay the toll to cross the gate."

"So, what, somebody got stuck at the toll booth?" she laughed. "Forgot to bring the change again? When will they finally learn?"

"Most people pay in kind," the Doctor corrected. "Can you imagine how difficult it must be to give a change from a chicken?"

Donna got giggles, that wouldn't go away even when the queue to the toll started moving again. When the toll collector extended his hand, waiting for them to pay, Donna doubled with laughter, murmuring breathlessly: "Change from a chicken, a chicken change." The Doctor had to produce a few small coins from her purse and pay the toll, at the same time explaining that "the feral girl, when she was still a tiny baby, fell down from the haystack and bashed her head, thus straining her wits." Donna nudged him in the ribs, but didn't lose her high spirits.

They went through the high gate ("The St Nicholas's Gate," the Doctor announced with important airs, after eavesdropping on two peasants talking to each other), and found themselves on an incredibly crowded street. After just a few steps, Donna stopped giggling. She sniffed and quickly covered her nose with a hand.

"Urghh!" She pulled a face. "It _stinks_!"

"Sewerage. Or the lack of the above." The Doctor pointed at open drain channels running along down the centre of the street. "Everything gets here. Muck from the stables, dyers vats content, household dishwater. Ah, right, they tend to empty their chamber-pots out of windows, so look sharp and dodge."

As if summoned, somebody emptied a chamber-pot out of the upper floor window, jutting far into the street above their heads. The Doctor ducked deftly, even without taking his hands out of his pockets; Donna jumped away, only by a hair's breadth avoiding being splashed.

"In every medieval town I get the same welcome," the Doctor stated philosophically. "Sludge."

"Disgusthigh..." Donna murmured, pinning her nose with two fingers.

"No, stop. Don't do that. Just breathe, you'll get used to it."

"Not in this life," Donna moaned. "Blimey, it stinks!"

"Heeerbs and spiiices!" somebody yelled straight into her ear. "Spices from beyond the seas; ginger and nutmeg, cinnamon, cumin, cloves and pepper! Herbs ad spices for you, Miss?!"

Donna had to struggle to free her sleeve from the salesman's grasp.

"Call me a _Miss_ again, and I'll _spice_ you so hard, you won't even know what _clovered_ you in the first place!" she yelled back. "Why does everybody assume I'm single?! Do I look single?! Ha?!"

Petrified salesman disappeared in the crowd, and the crowd itself thinned a little, leaving some free space for Donna and the Doctor.

"You know, there are times I almost like your yelling," the Doctor summed up. He jumped over the muddy puddle and strode towards a large hearth, right in the middle of the street, with a roasting spit and a huge cauldron hanging over the flames. "Look, it's a takeaway."

"How can you even think about food...?" Donna began, but the aroma coming from this medieval fast food bar wasn't half bad. It smelled of roast and stew, onions and garlic, and fresh herbs. "What's that smell?"

"Stewed hare," a man standing behind the hearth answered. He rapped a long, wooden spoon against the cauldron's wall. The cauldron sang in a deep, iron-y voice. "There are carrots, and turnips, and onions, to your liking. Want some bread with your stew; I'll send Michael to the bakers. Help yourself to some smoked fish. Still hot; just has been brought over from the smoker. Or spit roasted birds – take a look, there are pigeons and grouse, and a duck, and a hen. And if you're in a hurry, buy some meat and vegetable pies; they're finger-licking good."

Against her own will, Donna lent over the cauldron. The stew was bubbling and emanating a killer aroma. The Doctor was inspecting hot, golden-baked pies. There were hulked hares, drawn chickens, chopped pieces of pork and lamb on the dressing board, covered with fresh leaves to protect the food from sun and flies.

"I always thought that they ate rotten meat in the Middle Ages," Donna whispered straight in the Doctor's ear. "And they used all that spices to kill the stench, you know."

"Why would anybody eat rotten meat?" the Doctor wondered.

"Ooo..." the cook interrupted. "Not so long ago folks would kill each other for a piece of a stinky horse meat. They even say that man would eat man. You won't spurn anything when you're starving. But, what are we talking about here? My food is fresh and lovely! See for yourselves. Take a nibble. Go on. They would chuck me out of the Guild if I tried to sale rotten meat and fish."

"Yeah, so, when was... that... famine?" The Doctor knitted his eyebrows.

"Can I have a pie? How much is it?" Donna asked. "And what's that? Is it a pancake?"

"Oh, it'll be thirty years ago, or more," the cook said. "My father was just a boy back then, but he'll tell the story even today. He's still afraid that the dearth may come back. And who knows, the weather's foul enough this year, crops are scarce. Maybe dad's not worrying for nothing."

"And those baked thingies? What are they? And that little chicken looks tasty."

"It's a pigeon."

"A wha...?" Donna moved back. "A pigeon? You mean like a... a _pigeon_?"

"Like a _coo-coo_ pigeon." The Doctor waved his hands in front of Donna's nose.

"Oi!" she bristled instantly. "Don't get too smart, _alien_!"

"We'll take a pie each." The Doctor produced a handful of coins he was left with after paying the toll, and let the cook pick the appropriate amount. He and Donna grabbed large, steaming pies, wrapped in leaves – in Donna's opinion, much more sensible packaging than cardboard boxes at MacDonald's. Biting into hot stuffing they walked slowly up the street, among stalls of seamstresses, shoemakers, candle-makers and brewers. They've got carried along by a loud, colourful crowd, resounding with shouts, laughter and quarrels. Donna was looking around delightedly taking in the street's atmosphere. She stopped noticing the sewage stench at last, and even pigs pushing their way underfoot seemed more funny than annoying. She noticed, surprised with the fact, many dun, and brown, and black faces, as well as clothing from Middle and Far East. She was staring at women, buying fruit and vegetables at the stalls, picking eggs from little egg pyramids, and haggling with shopkeepers. With her head lifted up, she admired multi-storey buildings, jutting over the street on both sides so far, their thatched roofs would meet overhead. Their walls were made of stone or wood, sometimes whitewashed or plastered; they had narrow frontages, with just a door and maybe a tiny window, panes (if there were any) small, thick and completely opaque. Begrimed kids played hide and seek. The pie tasted wonderfully, hot with garlic and onion.

The crowd carried them onto a small square at a crossing of four streets. There was a tall, stone cross in the middle of the square. In front of the cross, there was a wooden dais covered with canvas. Actors in bright costumes, wearing masks covering their faces, were performing on stage. People in the audience were bursting with laughter almost every second. Finishing her pie, Donna halted and started watching the play.

_But the war is not a spree__,  
It no longer pleases me;  
__John wanted the Frenchme__n dead,  
__But the Frenchme__n bashed his head_.

One actor smacked the other over the head with a stick. The smacked one keeled over and fell to the planks. The crowd laughed and cheered.

"Well, he's no Chaucer, that's for sure," the Doctor murmured.

_Johnnie's eyes are getting dim__,  
His breath lost to Reaper Grim;  
Soon he's gonna breathe no mo more,  
So the Doctor was sent for._

"Have you heard that? They've sent for you," Donna laughed.

"Very funny."

In the meantime there was a moment of a standstill on the stage. After a while, even "Johnnie" lying breathlessly on the planks, lifted his head up and yelled:

_I am lying here__, dead,  
Where are you, you bloody cad?_

The other actor was searching for somebody among the crowds.

"Simon!" he yelled. "Simon, you rascal, it's your turn! Where did he go again? I've been telling you to move away from the brewers!"

The spectators burst into laughter. Shocked, Donna realised that the Doctor was clambering up onto the stage. She snorted, amused but also irritated; that was _so _like him. Both actors started protesting, but the Doctor faced the public, winked at Donna and spouted bombastically:

_I'm the Doctor, I'll help you,  
There's no trick I cannot do.  
You'll be living at full throttle,  
Once you've drunk what's in this bottle!_

He leant over the "killed" actor, pretending to pour something down his throat. "Johnnie" jumped up immediately, bowed down in front of the Doctor and the spectators, and recited quickly:

_Devil was there by my bed__,  
But the Doctor bashed his head.  
Now I'm stronger than a boar,  
And to France I go, to war!_

Laughter, applause and whistles accompanied the Doctor jumping down from the stage.

"Couldn't help yourself, could you?" Donna snorted. "Who do you think you are, Leonardo di Caprio?"

"Maybe I'm not Leonardo di Caprio, but I was on stage with Shakespeare," the Doctor answered.

"What, were you in 'Romeo and Juliet'? In 'Hamlet'?" Donna chided.

"'Love Labours Won' actually."

"Oi, trying to be clever again, are you?"

But the Doctor froze suddenly, his face long, his eyes popping out.

"Oh... no..." he mumbled. "Oh... _no-no-no-no-no-no-no_..."

Donna followed his gaze and over the heads of the people in the crowd she saw a roof of the blue box, moving away quickly.

"The TARDIS!" she shouted. "What?! How?! Doctor?!"

The Doctor was running already, pushing his way through the crowd around the stage.

"No!" he was screaming. "Not _again_! It can't be! It can't be happening!"

"Doctor!" Donna bellowed, trying to catch up with him. "Wait for me! Doctor!"

The TARDIS's roof was sailing away, and the distance between the box and the Doctor wasn't decreasing but increasing with each passing moment. It seemed to him that the crowd thickened somehow; there were far too many people in his way. He jumped onto the plinth of the stone cross, holding to it with one arm, and above the crowd's heads he saw his ship being carried away on a wagon pulled by two horses. And surrounded by armed man. The Doctor quickly calculated the shortest way to the wagon, and jumped down, back on the street.

"On the fourteenth of August, the year of our Lord thirteen forty eight, we pray for late Johanna of Dundry, and for her husband, Peter! May God give them eternal rest, Amen!"

The Doctor, already prepared for a desperate sprint, stopped dead in his tracks. Very, very slowly he turned his head in the direction of the voice.

The town-crier rang the bell he held in his hand.

"On the fourteenth of August, the year of our Lord thirteen forty eight, we pray for those killed by the Great Mortality, brought from beyond the sea, to English shores, to the seaport of Melcombe! May God give them eternal rest, Amen!"

"Oh... no..." the Doctor whispered. Donna, who had almost caught up with him, saw the expression of purest dread on his face. "No... please... not _that_..."

"What's wrong?" she shouted, reaching him, and clutching at his coat's sleeve. "What's going on, Doctor?"

He jerked both hands up and squeezed his temples, as if he had a sudden headache. He was looking around wildly.

"Doctor?! What is it?!"

"Bristol! _Anno Domini_ 1348! Fifteenth of August 1348!"

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Oh, Donna, it's the day when the Plague reaches Bristol! The Great Mortality! The Pestilence! The Black Death! ..._The Plague_!"

Now she understood. Her eyes widened in fear.

"We are in Pompeii," she whispered, "and it's Volcano Day."

"It's Volcano Day," he confirmed, horror in his voice.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	3. Gratitude and Priorities

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**.3. Gratitude and Priorities**

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"Ah, here's our unexpected saviour!"

The Doctor didn't react, still paralysed by his horrifying discovery and the loss of the TARDIS, which was now completely out of his sight. It was Donna, clutching at his shoulder, who raised her head and saw the actor who had played "Johnnie", pushing his way through the crowd. She recognised his costume, as he removed the mask he had been wearing on stage. He was a slim, handsome young man, with fair hair, a moustache and a beard. His blue eyes seemed to smile all the time.

"You've saved the show, man," he said. "I'm Allan, Allan of York. And the one over there is Thomas of Saint Giles."

He pointed at another young man, also picking his way across the square.

The Doctor started, with a hiss of irritation.

"Where have they taken her?" he asked sharply. "A blue box, have you seen where they've taken it?"

"To... the castle?" Allan, taken by surprise, shrugged his shoulders.

"Right, let's go to the castle!"

"Oi, hey, hold your horses!" The actor opened his arms as if really trying to stop a galloping beast. "And how are you planning to get there?"

"I'll knock on the door?"

"Yeah. Ingenious. Completely pointless, but ingenious. Why didn't we think about it, Thomas? Knock on the door!"

The second young man caught up with them and nodded at them with a smile. He had beautiful, black curls and a complexion ruined with acne. The Doctor hissed again and tried to evade Allan.

"Wait. If you want to get to the castle, stay with us. We're going there tomorrow, first thing in the morning," Thomas said.

"I can't wait till tomorrow, it's my shi... It's my box, it is!" the Doctor spat, irritated. "Why are they always taking her... it... away? They shouldn't even be able to see it, I swear, one of these days I'll finally fix the Chameleon Circuit! Cause it's getting _ridiculous_!"

"Tomorrow morning. You'll say you're a member of our troupe. You'll get to the castle. And you'll get your box back," Allan explained, slowly and simply, as if talking to a half-wit. "And now, come on, we'll buy you a beer... What's your name?"

The Doctor remained silent, his lips pursed, so Donna took over. "The Doctor," she said. "And Donna Noble."

"Well, come on then, Noble Doctor." Allan patted the man on the shoulder. "Until tomorrow, let our troupe take care of you, and of your spouse."

Reflexively, the Doctor whispered: "She... She's not my wife."

"No, really, I am not," Donna confirmed.

"Oh, wonderful, so you're siblings?"

The Doctor turned quickly towards Donna.

"We're safe," he said urgently. "We should be safe; the TARDIS shields us against most diseases; when you travel in time the _Yersinia Pestis_ immunisation is an absolute must. We should be just fine, Donna."

"You'd be much more convincing if you didn't look so scared," she whispered back. "If that's the look of somebody completely safe..."

He sucked the air through his teeth again.

"It'll be a hell," he whispered. "This town. The whole England. The entire Europe. Hell. The _Yersinia_ can't harm us, but we should get out of here as soon as possible."

"O... kay... I've got it. Hell. Run. You don't have to add anything else."

He rubbed his face with shaky hands.

"Did you have any valuables in that box?" asked Thomas, looking at him closely.

"Yes," Donna answered, because the Doctor's silence, as he stood there with his brow furrowed and a vacant stare, again forced her to take a lead. She flashed a charming smile at Allan, the more handsome of the two actors. "All our possessions, to be honest. My brother is very upset. But, all in all, it's nothing a nice cup of tea wouldn't fix."

"A cup of te-what?" Allan gave her a look.

"No, Donna, tea won't get to England until the seventieth century," the Doctor whispered out of a corner of his mouth, shaking off his absent-mindedness.

"Yeah? Oh! No way! What do they drink here, then?"

"Water," Allan said. "Wine. And actors drink beer, mostly. Lovely ale, soul's delight, feeds your body, when you're dry."

"You know, sometimes I think you could have left me a _little bit_ of this knowledge of yours," Donna growled, embarrassed. "Why is it always _me_ to make a fool of myself?"

"It's not any knowledge of _mine_. They teach it at school. Well, they _should_ teach it at school."

"Now you're suggesting I'm an _ignorant_?"

"_DonNA_! We've lost the TARDIS, we're up to our ears in trouble; you could at least refrain from _quarrelling_!"

"Ale?" Thomas suggested. "And maybe something that goes with ale?"

"Angelica, Robert the Cook's wife, brews the best ale in town," Allan added. "They live nearby, on High Street, next to the St Nicholas's Church."

"Maybe I didn't pay attention to _tea's_ history, how was I supposed to know I was going to _need it_?" Donna snorted.

"You know, I'm surprised by your _priorities_ at times," the Doctor countered. "The plague versus PG Tips!"

"_ALE_!" Thomas bellowed in a well trained voice of a minstrel, causing a few passers-by to stop and stare at them intently.

"Yeah, ale'd be fine," the Doctor answered, his voice resigned. "We'll need a place to spend the night."

"Good lady Angelica will not refuse us a bed," Allan said. "It has really clouded over, hasn't it? We'll have another downpour, I'm telling you. It's a very wet summer this year... Will you help us to dismantle the stage and pack our costumes before it all gets soaked? It's usually Simon's job, but he's wandered away again. We've tried to make a minstrel out of him, but he just doesn't have the calling."

"The life of the minstrel requires a strict spiritual discipline," Thomas backed him up, seriously.

"Devotion," Allan added.

They started back towards the square together. The sky, clear so far, indeed darkened, full of heavy clouds. In the grey light, the crowd gathered at the crossing of four streets didn't look so happy and colourful anymore.

"Sacrifice," Thomas continued, folding canvas and loading it on a small cart, which had served as a stage earlier. "Mortification of a body..."

"...and perfecting the soul," Allan finished, fastening the bundles with a piece of hempen string.

"It's like interviews with TV stars," Donna smiled. "The flocks of fans in every town have nothing to do with it, right? Fame? Popularity? Money? No? Well, then the actor's profession had really changed since the Middle Ages."

"Allie, you're _gorgeous_!" a voice, giggling happily, called from among the crowd. "We love you, Allie!"

The young man shrugged and smiled innocently.

"That's what I meant when I was talking about sacrifices and perfecting the soul. There's a temptation everywhere you go."

There were more shouts and squeaks in the crowd.

"Can we go?" the Doctor asked impatiently. Donna gave him a surprised look. He really seemed scared, and right now he apparently didn't feel so good being in the centre of attention.

There was a sudden uproar in the mouth of one of the streets. Somebody was running, pushing tradesmen and passers-by, jostling stalls and scattering merchandise. Screams of anger and protest mingled with giggles of Allan's fans.

"Simon?" Thomas was surprised to see a young boy, dressed in colourful but dirty clothing, rushing onto the square. "What is he up to again?"

Simon moved with effort, like someone completely exhausted. When he approached, the Doctor noticed that his youthful face, covered in a sparse beard and in abundance of acne, was bathed in perspiration. There were dark shadows under his unnaturally bright, feverish eyes, and the front of his tunic was splashed with blood. People in dark clothing were chasing Simon. The Doctor was instantly alarmed by the devices in their hands. They didn't belong to that period. To be honest, they belonged to a period even further away from the Middle Ages, than Donna's times. From Donna's point of view, they belonged to the future.

"Simon, what did you get yourself into?" Allan shouted, as he dropped the bundle of costumes to the ground. "Have you been fighting again? Who are these people?"

The running boy stumbled, fell to one knee and yelled in pain. He looked back, panic in his eyes, at the people chasing him. He choked with painful cough, but regardless of spasms tearing at his body, he jumped up and rushed towards his friends again.

Straight at Donna.

The Doctor jumped in between the two of them, grabbed Donna by the shoulders, and pushed her away, into the crowd. Simon rammed into him, and grasped the Doctor's lapels.

"Help me, kind sire!" he breathed. "Don't give me to the devils! Oh, don't leave me to damnation!"

The Doctor supported him instinctively, protecting him from a fall. Simon was as hot as an oven. His eyes were wild. He coughed again, deeply and painfully, and wouldn't stop until all colour left his cheeks, and his legs gave way. He fainted.

The crowd roared.

The Doctor lowered Simon to the ground; the boy seemed to be dead already. Blood was trickling from his mouth and nose. The Doctor stared at him for a while, his eyes wide, then he looked up, trying to find Donna...

And in the next instant he got pushed away by the panicking crowd. People chasing Simon, trying to get closer, started shooting in the air; amber energy streaks slashed the falling dusk; but it only increased the panic. Lying in the dirt, the Doctor felt the people pushing and kicking him. He tried to roll away and get up to his knees – in the panicking crowds it was best to get up as soon as possible – but he was hit in the temple by somebody's wooden toolbox. His back slammed into a whitewashed wall and the Doctor slowly slid down to the ground. The screams faded and the light was gone.

The Doctor blacked out.

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**_To be continued..._**


	4. Trouble, as Usual

_Thanks for reviews! _

_**Disclaimer:** Donna and the Doctor belong to somebody else, Thomas and Allan are mine. Ha!_

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**.4. Trouble, as Usual**

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"Blimey, he's really beaten. He's got a plum sized bump here. Soak it in a puddle, will you, Thomas."

"What for? He's already soaked through."

The Doctor felt a cold compress being placed on his forehead. He was lying there for a few more seconds, not completely aware of his surroundings, before springing up to a sitting position.

"Ah!" Allan, crouching next to him, jumped back, lost his balance and slumped into a muddy puddle.

"Donna?" the Doctor asked. The compress slid from his forehead and fell on to the ground.

"Easy," Allan said. "Just calm down. Watch your head. They gave you a nasty bump. Can you see me alright? Can you hear me?"

"_DonNA_!" the Doctor yelled. He jumped up to his feet, swayed, and rested his hand on the wall, for support. "_DONNA_!"

"Yes. Right. We've been looking around, but she's nowhere to be seen," Allan said. "Those people... Those black clad people... They must have kidnapped her."

"_Kidnapped_? _KIDNAPPED_? But why? Where?"

"Maybe... maybe they've taken her to the castle?" Thomas chipped in. Both the Doctor and Allan goggled at him, confused.

"What? She's a handsome bird," Thomas murmured defensively. "Somebody must have fancied her."

"Yeaaah..." said the Doctor after a while and turned to Allan. "Did you see where they took her? Which way did they go?"

"I didn't see them taking her. When it got a bit nasty, we jumped under the cart, Thomas and I. That's what we always do. The best way to save your head is to get out of the way of trouble."

"I saw them picking Simon up," Thomas added.

"What did he get himself into again?" Allan gasped.

"Or maybe they've taken them to the harbour. On board of a ship," Thomas said bleakly. "They sail them across the see and that'll be the last we've ever seen of them."

"Stop talking rubbish!" Allan spat, upset.

"I'm sure _he's_ got something to do with it," Thomas pointed his thumb at the Doctor, who was running around the square, calling Donna and accosting people in the thinning crowd.

"Donna! _Donna_! _DONNA_! Have you seen where the red-haired woman was taken? She was wearing a brown dress and a yellow tunic. No? _DONNA_! Have you seen a ginger woman? Tall, quite slim recently, _powerful_ voice? I can't believe they do it every time... Every time... Ooooh, Donna, where did you go again?!"

"They were chasing Simon," said Allan.

"What would Simon have to do...?"

"Well I don't know! But you saw how he looked like. He's got himself in some serious trouble, I'm telling you."

"Oooh, it's nonsense!" Thomas shook his head angrily. "Simon? The most serious trouble he could get himself into would be a street fight. And that Donna Noble woman... Did you hear her talking to the Doctor? They're not from around here, that's for sure."

Allan looked back over his shoulder at the Doctor, still running frantically around the square, which by now emptied almost completely. There was something in the man's hand; something radiating a blue glow. Or it might have been just an illusion.

"Doctor, help us take the cart to Robert Cook's house," Allan said. "We'll leave our stuff there and then we'll look for your sister together. Those people kidnapped Simon as well, and he's our responsibility."

"No, there's no time..."

"Doctor, who do you want to ask in this downpour?"

It was just then, that the Doctor finally noticed a lashing rain, making his drenched clothes cling to his body. Almost all of Bristol inhabitants withdrew to a shelter of their homes, and those who remained outside were scurrying away, covering their heads with their hands or with pieces of cloth. Streets quickly turned into channels brimming with slippery mud. The downpour brought along an untimely dusk. Only a few candles twinkled in windows of nearby houses.

"Come on, it won't take long," Allan insisted. "We'll wait the rain through, we'll think what to do next... or... we'll run there..."

Because the Doctor was galloping up the street, still shouting out Donna's name and banging on the doors of homes he was passing on his way.

"Now what?" asked Thomas, looking at him from under the cloth he pulled over his head.

"Oh, take the cart to Angelica and Robert. I'll go with the Doctor."

"You'll just return empty handed, what with the rain and all."

"Tell it to him. They've kidnapped his sister, you know."

With a deep sigh, Allan adjusted his coat and followed the Doctor. Thomas was watching him for a while. He then shrugged and started pushing the cart in the opposite direction, towards the Cook's house.

Allan caught up with the Doctor in the middle of Wine Street. The man was standing in the pouring rain, bent down, his hands resting on his tights. He was gasping heavily. When Allan came closer, the Doctor straightened up and tilted his head, letting raindrops shower onto his face. He raised his hands and ran his fingers through the wet hair.

"Trouble," he said, "...as usual."

"I know the feeling," Allan answered.

"Those people... Those black clad people... They shouldn't even be here..."

"Do you know them?"

"No." The Doctor shook his head vigorously. "But I know they are not from around here."

"Are they from outside the town?"

"From... Oh, they're from far away. Very far away. But what do they want with Donna? Why did they kidnap her? Why _her _and not _me_? And why now? Why _now_?!"

"Now?" Allan repeated, uncertainly. "Does today's day have a special meaning?

"Ooooh, yes," the Doctor murmured, without looking at him. "Today's the day when I let her out of my sight."

The boy hesitantly patted his arm.

"Let's go, Doctor. Getting sick won't help us. I've got an idea anyway. Robert's kids will help us summon the Fellowship."

The man looked at him questioningly.

"The Hunters Fellowship," Allan explained. "Those kids know every nook and cranny of Bristol, they know it better then all of us taken together. Believe you me, if anybody can find your sister, it's them."

Slowly, the Doctor nodded.

"I have to find some dry and bright place to set up my screwdriver anyway," he said.

Allan lifted his eyebrows, but did not comment on the Doctor's last sentence. Thomas was right, that man was really weird. And he wasn't from around Bristol for sure. For one, his clothes were a dead giveaway. But, he had helped their little troupe out of trouble, and now he was in serious trouble himself. And finally, Allan wanted to find Simon just as much as the Doctor wanted to find Donna. So, they were rowing the same boat after all.

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**_To be continued..._**


	5. Quarantine

**_Disclaimer: _**_I didn't invent it; but then I didn't invent the alphabet neither. Nor the paper. Nor Word. Gosh, I didn't invent a thing in my life! :(_

_Please, pretty please, do review, I'd like to know if you like a nice little plague:D _

**

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.5. Quarantine**

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Donna woke up in a little, dark room, full of equipment cluttering wooden tables. Although futuristic, the equipment clearly belonged to a hospital's laboratory. The smell of detergents further underlined the first impression. Dusty cauldrons, alembics, retorts and similar alchemical stills seemed out of place in company of highly polished chrome plating and matt plastic of other utensils. Donna took it all in with a single glance, before bursting into shout:

"What're you doing? What do you think you're doing?! Let me go, I'm telling you, _let – me – go – right – now_!"

A short-haired woman was clasping some sort of thin, metal circlet around Donna's neck, fiddling with the locking mechanism. The man, holding Donna's hands twisted painfully behind her back, moved a step backwards, trying to avoid at least some of the kicks she aimed at him.

"Kathryn, is it really necessary?" he moaned. "Let's just isolate her."

"What?! _What_?! You have no right! You've kidnapped me, and you have no right! Let me go, you bloody perv! _Ooow_! That _hurts_!"

"Just don't let her move," the woman growled. "I'll take a sample."

"A sample of what?" Donna froze for a short while. "Who are you, people? You're from the _future_, right? What are you doing here? _Ooow_, watch it!"

Her words must have surprised the man, as his grip on her wrists loosened, and Donna managed to wrench her hands free before the vacuum vial filled up with her blood. A sharp needle tore at Donna's skin, in the crook of her arm.

"_Oooow_! Bloody hell! You sadist, you...!"

"How does she know that?"

"Because she's from the future as well, I presume." The short-haired woman shook her head angrily. "Watch it, Cuthbert!"

"What's going on here?!" Donna bellowed. She lifted her hands to her neck and pulled at the metal circlet. "What's that?!"

"It's just a safety device. A protection," the woman answered. "Can I take a sample of your blood?"

"What for?!"

"Cuthbert, stop it!" the woman shouted at the man, still trying to grab and pin Donna's hands.

"My name is Kathryn ViaCaelldor Dorina," she said. "Please, forgive us the dismal introduction. We thought you were an aborigine."

"Well, I'm obviously not!" Donna barked. "What do you need my blood sample for, and what is that collar, and why have you been chasing that boy, Simon?"

"I suppose you know what times you are in?" the man asked ironically, coming out from behind Donna's back. His skin was swarthy and his eyes were large and dark. His long hair fell to his shoulders in thick black strands. "Or are you a bloody random chrono-jumper?"

"Cuthbert DaiAngelo Syed," said the woman, giving him a stern look. "A senior lab assistant, and a junior prick, as you've probably noticed."

"Kathryn, for fuck's sake, we've got no time for that! Let's just isolate her; I don't know how it's different..."

"No!"

"She's a chrono-jumper, a bloody chrono-jumper; she'll spread that shit all over the universe!" the man shouted. "Aren't we in enough trouble already? 'Cause in my opinion we're in shit up to our eyes!"

Donna gave him a stare sparkling with laser beams, radioactive particles and poison droplets.

"Riiiight," she drawled. "No one is _isolating _anyone. Is that clear? And I'm not a_ bloody random chrono-jumper_; by the way, who are you, if not bloody random chrono-jumpers? And yes, I know, what times I'm in. Do you? Do you know where you are? Cause I saw you waving that gun and shooting in the air. In _thirteen forty eight_! Who did you try to impress? The Chinese?"

Oh, she knew that much, alright. The gunpowder was invented by the Chinese. Of course, Cuthbert didn't use any gunpowder; his weapon emitted some sort of beam, maybe a laser beam – Donna couldn't even start to guess it. But they used bows and crossbows rather than laser guns in the fourteenth century Europe... Right? Where was the Doctor when she so desperately needed his expertise?

"You..."

"Stop it, Bert!" Kathryn stepped away and replaced the vial on the lab table. "Please, excuse his behaviour. A few months in the field and all pretence of civilisation drops off him completely."

She rubbed her face in a gesture of tiredness.

"It's just... We've got a serious problem here," she said. "That boy... that... Simon... he was exposed to a deadly micro organism, and then he escaped the quarantine. We tried to stop him before he could spread the disease across the town, but..." She opened her hands. "We have no men, we have no means and we have no time."

"What are you babbling about? It is a _history_; the plague was brought here from beyond the sea; today the Black Death enters Bristol and you won't change it with all your shooting and sample taking." Donna was happy to be able to use the Doctor's words.

"You don't understand. This..."

"Shut up, Kathryn!" the man interrupted. "Just check her bloods, if you won't isolate her; with all that bloody natter we've lost enough time for first symptoms to become visible. You are aware how short the incubation period has become."

The woman bit her lips.

"Well, I have to admit, however reluctantly, that he's right. It's a very dangerous disease."

"Yes, I know," Donna said. "You don't have to bother with samples and quarantine. I am immune against that, how do you call it, _Yerba Pest_! And now I have to find my friend!"

"_Yersinia Pestis_," Kathryn corrected automatically, "And it's not... Listen, we've taken you for your own good."

"You've _kidnapped_ me."

"You've came into contact with Simon."

"He didn't even _touch_ me! What does it matter anyway? I'm telling you again, I am immune against that germ. I just want to find my friend and get out of this time as soon as possible."

"We'll help you looking," Kathryn said. "Tomorrow. Tonight you have to stay with us. Please."

"Why?"

"Blimey, Kat!" the man shouted. "Just _do_ it!"

"Do?!" Donna nervously tugged at the metal circlet. "Do what?! And what the hell is that?!"

The woman looked at her, surprised.

"It's a collar. I mean, it's a micro-molecular filter. Don't try to take it off. Better safe than sorry."

Cuthbert fumbled nervously and looked away.

"A bit late for that," he murmured. "Don't you think?"

The short-haired woman shrugged, and leant against the table with a deep sigh.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"None of your business," Donna responded immediately.

"No, of course it's not. Do it, Bert."

Suddenly Donna realised that she had made a mistake letting the man out of her sight. A pneumatic syringe pressed to her shoulder hissed loudly, and before Donna could make a single move, she started sliding back into sleep and darkness.

"I'm sorry," Kathryn said. "You have to go through the quarantine. I'm really sorry."

* * *

_**To be continued...**_


	6. Conversations Over Beer

_**Author's note:** I guess people are the same wherever you go. They'll sit over dinner and moan about "hard times." And sometimes they're right. The more I write about them, the more I feel for them. Sorry if I'm boring you with descriptions and details, but... it is their life, you see?_

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**.6. Conversations over Beer**

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It turned out that Robert the Cook was the same man, who had sold them those delicious pies earlier that day. Robert recognised the Doctor as well and, inviting him to his house, he expressed his commiseration for Donna's disappearance. They passed a dark and narrow "kitchen" and walked in to the living area – a large room, the floor covered with fresh reeds, accommodating a wooden table, benches, stools and two ornamented chests. Angelica welcomed them there. She was a slim and pale woman, with bright smile and eyes the colour of bluebells. Obviously Allan and Thomas were Robert and Angelica's frequent guests, as they instantly got a household members' treatment – without any more ado they were compelled to do various chores, such as bringing and boiling water, preparing linen towels, and, after all the travellers had a chance to wash and dry their hands, laying the table with aromatic dishes. In the meantime Angelica added last stitches to a new dress and returned the sewing to the wooden chest.

Before they sat to the table, the untimely darkness fell outside a tiny window. The rain rustled in a thatched roof, whipped against the window, and banged on the door. Robert lit several candles, which were casting vivid shadows across the room. While doing it, he grumbled a little about aching bones, and the weather causing the discomfort.

Angelica and Robert's children joined them at dinner – Michael, whom the cook had mentioned earlier, and Anna, eight year old, fair-haired, constantly giggling girl – as well as Robert's father – Andrew. There was plenty of food on the table, and lots of ale brewed by Angelica. The Doctor gulped half of a mug, pulled a face, swallowed the beer with difficulty and coughed – medieval ale resembled a soup, and not a beer. For a long while everybody, except the Doctor, ate with relish, in silence.

"Are you not hungry, sire?" Angelica asked finally.

"He's worrying sick about his sister," Allan answered for the Doctor.

"Oh, I see. I am worried about Simon as well, just like I would worry about my own," she explained. "His family used to live in the neighbourhood, his father and his mother had died, older brothers had married, and Simon had stayed with us. We thought to make him a cook, like Michael; Michael is a journeyman already, by the master cook, he'll be doing his master-piece this autumn; but Simon wasn't good at cooking. One year Allan and Thomas stayed with us, and Simon stuck with them straight away. And so he became a guiser, an actor. He's always been a gadabout... I'm not saying you are gadabouts, boys, but..."

"Oh, he is a gadabout, lady Angelica, and that's why he's getting soaked in the rain instead of sitting in the warm house, eating the dinner and enjoying your fabulous ale," Thomas said chivalrously.

"As if there was not enough rain this year," Robert sighed.

"Yes, it was a rainy year," the Doctor murmured. "_Is_," he corrected himself. "It is, I meant, it is."

"Well, it started raining sometime mid-summer," Andrew confirmed, slowly chewing at a piece of cheese. Although he was still in his early fifties, he had lost most of his teeth already. "Still, if it gets warmer, crops may be saved. Otherwise..."

Robert tried to interrupt. "Dad..."

"It's just like the Great Famine," his father said bleakly. "People would bring grain home in pots and jars, to save what could be saved, as nothing would ripen in the field. All the grass retted, livestock died out, salt become so dear nobody could afford it, and without salt people couldn't preserve the meat. We would go to the woods in search of food – picking nuts and roots, and even leaves and tree bark. It rained for three years, and winters were harsh. Terrible times. There were children alone in the woods. Elderly would refuse to eat, to save young ones. And highways were crowded with brigands. People's hearts grew tougher, when the hunger knocked on a door."

"Dad," said Robert, apparently embarrassed by his father's oration.

"_When God saw that the world was so over proud,  
He sent a dearth on earth, and made it full hard...  
And then they turned pale who had laughed so loud,  
And they became all docile who before were so proud.  
A man's heart might bleed for to hear the cry  
__Of poor men who called out, __Alas! For hunger I die ...!"***** _Allan recited suddenly.

Angelica made a sing of a cross, her face pale.

"Let's hope it stops raining," said Robert.

"It won't stop until December," the Doctor whispered.

"What's that?"

"No, nothing."

"The rain, dearth, cold weather and now the plague." Robert shook his head. "From Gascony it was dragged here, that bloody pestilence!"

"Just because the wealthy dreamt of war again," his father added instantly. "As if there was not enough misfortune in the world, not enough suffering."

"But we won at Crécy, dad. Just two years ago. French had more men, and still king Edward led his knights into battle so that no one could oppose them. And what of Neville Cross, where we've beaten the Scots? It's glorious and..."

"Aw, stupid you are!" Andrew interrupted his son. "Glory and fame, bloody pestilence! Lords are getting rich, while we have to pay and starve."

"Oh, come on, nobody starves," said Thomas. "What was that finger-licking thingy in sauce, master Robert?"

"_Checonys in Cyrip_" the cook answered immediately, pride in his tone. "Chicken served in a vine-currant sauce."

"Delicious."

"Well, you boil the chicken in broth until just done, you let it cool, cut into pieces, put the chicken to a large pot with the wine, vinegar, spices, currants, and ginger and bring to a boil again..."

"I heard the monk who said that the plague had been brought to Messina from Caffa on the Black Sea. The Tatars were using catapults to shoot the sick animals' meat through the walls of besieged town," Allan said slowly. "And then the pestilence walked across towns and villages, to come ashore in England, in Melcombe, Dorsetshire, by the end of June. So, it's the war that had begotten the plague. Maybe if we didn't go to France, England would have been saved."

"Maybe the final days are nigh," said Andrew, putting half eaten cheese back on the table. "First, on a Black Horse, rode Hunger; then, on a Red Horse came War; now, on a White Horse, comes Plague; and finally, on a Pale Horse..."

"Death," Allan whispered.

"What are we talking about here?" Thomas shouted. "Lady Angelica, give us some more of your lovely ale! And you, Doctor, tell us something about yourself. Where are you coming from? Where are you going?"

The Doctor, thrown out of his reverie, looked at him with large, round eyes in his long face. He coughed and reflexively ran his fingers through his hair.

"Eeerm... London... We're from... London," he said.

Allan cleared his throat and gave Thomas a look saying clearly: See? That explains everything.

"What brings you to Bristol?" Thomas pushed, fumbling with a mug of ale.

"Eeerm... business?" the Doctor murmured uncertainly.

"Are you a merchant?"

"You... you may say so... Weeell, I'm more of a traveller... Yeah, I... travel... A lot..."

"Don't pester our guest!" Angelica snorted and smacked Thomas across the shoulder with a cloth towel. "Can't you see he's worried sick?"

"Tomorrow morning Michael will gather kids from the neighbourhood," she turned to the Doctor. "Don't worry, sire. I know that locust well enough. They'll spread around the town like mice; there's no hole they wouldn't sneak into. They'll find your little sister and that good-for-nothing Simon."

A bell tolled outside the window.

"A curfew bell," said Robert the Cook. "Time to rest. We'll have a busy day tomorrow."

"Fifteenth of August, thirteen forty eight," the Doctor said quietly.

"Aye, just as you said, good sire. Fifteenth of August, the year of our Lord thirteen forty eight."

"Amen," Allan added, replacing the empty beer mug on the table.

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_*** **Fragment of "Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II", c. 1321.

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_

_**To be continued...**_


	7. The Great Escape

_YES! I've managed to upload! (a happy dance). Thank you for all reviews!_

_**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, wouldn't this episode look cool on TV?_

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**.7. The Great Escape**

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With a melody of bells, a pale morning light filtered through cracks in a window shutter. The rain was still drumming against walls and rustling in a thatched roof. Donna felt as if her head was light and swollen. She could still feel the after-effects of sleep-inducing injection Cuthbert had stuffed her with. She sat up on a straw mattress, instinctively reaching to her neck and to a metal collar clasped around it. Since the circlet wouldn't give, Donna run her fingers through her tousled hair and took several deep breaths, trying to chase away the remains of sleepiness.

Just then a shadow appeared in the streak of light filtering through the window. Donna moved closer, peeking through the crack in the shutter. There was some shuffling, whispers and squeaks outside the window, and after a while a large, blue eye in a little girl's face, looked straight at Donna.

"Don...na?" the girl whispered. "Are you Donna?"

"Yes," Donna whispered back, surprised. "Is the Doctor with you?"

"No. Just Matthew," the girl answered. "What are you sitting there for? Everyone is looking for you, you know?"

"Who's Matthew?"

"He's my brother, silly," the girl said, all airs and graces. "Can't you squeeze through the window?"

Donna carefully assessed the size of a bay in the thick wall. She tried to open the shutter, but to no avail.

"I don't think I can. It's nailed shut."

"Oh, alright, wait then. Matthew will run to the Cooks and tell Michael to tell the Doctor. And you stay here," the girl ordered. "And call me, if anything happens. But quietly; there are some people wandering around here."

"Hey, wait, what's your name?"

"Rosalina. And I can't wait, Matthew's giving me a piggyback ride; this window is really high. But I'll hide behind the corner. I'll answer if you shout."

"Okay. Thank you, Rosalina. A lovely name, by the way." Donna smiled gently. Again she reached to the metal collar on her neck, moving her fingers along, looking for a clasp, but it seemed that there was no clasp at all. A solid metal, probably some alloy, as the circlet was quite light.

Waiting seemed unbearably long. Donna picked straws from her hair and tidied it as much as she could with only her fingers. She smoothed her creased dress, straightened her tunic and tightened her leather belt. Her hand landed on little purses, attached to the belt. She almost smacked her forehead with her hand in annoyance. She had everything she needed there, and she let some underage, medieval girlie order her around. She rummaged through the purse, extracted a little knife, pulled closer to the window and started to gouge at the shutter's wooden frame. Even if it was completely pointless, at least it kept Donna busy, and made the time of waiting seem shorter. After a while she was totally engrossed in work, her tongue in a corner of her mouth, her brow furrowed.

She almost screamed when somebody knocked on the shutter.

"Doctor?" she gasped.

The person outside pushed the shutter once, twice, nails gave way and the window opened wide, nearly catching Donna's nose.

"Doctor?" she repeated.

Allan's face appeared in the bay.

"Quickly," he breathed. "Your brother and Thomas will be waiting by the Cross. Can you squeeze through the window?"

"Why is _everybody_ asking me that?! I've lost _a lot_ of weight recently, if you want to know! Diet and exercises!"

A wave of surprise washed over Allan's face.

"What?"

"Oh!" Donna shrugged. "_You_ probably think fat is beautiful. Move away, I'm coming."

She had to crawl into the bay, push her shoulders through the window and grab Allan's neck, so that he could pull her through the narrow opening. She had lied about the diet and, even more, about exercises – she had lost weight as a result of stress and recent stasis – and none of the above does anything for physical strength. Balancing dangerously on top of a barrel he had placed under the window, Allan managed finally to pull Donna out and carefully lowered her to the ground. Donna brushed off her skirt, tidied her hair again and straightened the metal circlet.

"All right," she said. "Thanks. And where's Rosalina?"

"I told her to skedaddle," Allan answered. "Too many funny people here. C'mon, we have to scoot."

"What is that? Some sort of a monastery?" Donna looked around curiously. They were standing in a small bailey, surrounded by a high, stone wall. Squabby buildings behind the wall seemed neglected and deserted.

"I guess so," Allan answered. "I think that monks used to live here. It used to be an abbey. I don't know Bristol that well, but I can ask Robert. Now let's go, quickly!"

"Why didn't the Doctor come with you?" Donna asked, as they were hurrying towards the yard's exit. "Something kept him?"

"Oh, your brother has been looking for you since the crack of dawn, really," Allan said. "We couldn't persuade him that the kids would find you in no time anyway. I've never seen anybody running that much in my life! Without being chased."

"I know what you mean," Donna grinned at him.

"Thomas and the Doctor rushed to the castle, but the gate was closed. They're not letting anyone in. Have you seen Simon?"

"No. But those people... They spoke about him."

Allan paused for a while. "So he is here? Donna, I have to find him!"

"No," Donna protested instantly, remembering what Kathryn had said about the boy. "Listen, I don't want to worry you, or anything, but Simon is seriously ill. He's contagious."

Oh, Allan wouldn't know what that mean, would he?

"You could catch it yourself and get ill as well," she explained.

The young man stopped suddenly, in the middle of the street.

"Is it a plague?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know," Donna lied.

"This morning... here in the town... I heard rumours about some people who got unwell." Simon rubbed his face in a very Doctor-like gesture. "They're just rumours so far, but people start to panic. They speak about lumps in the armpits and groin, about black spots on the skin, about..."

He shrugged suddenly and looked back over his shoulder.

"What is it? Allan?"

"I can't," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I have to go back to the abbey and find Simon. Listen, just go to the bottom of this alley, and then turn left into Wine Street. You'll see the Cross. It's not far; you'll find your way."

He turned and marched quickly towards the abbey. Donna had to run to catch up with him.

"Allan, they'll catch you! Stop it! You can't do it on your own, wait, we'll be back with the Doctor! If anyone can help you, it's him!"

He paused, only to push her away.

"Simon's ill," he said, "and he's alone. Just... Just tell Thomas where I am. Well, go on, go, your Doctor is at his wits' end."

He jogged towards the abbey. Donna's shoulders sagged. She followed Allan with her eyes for a while, then she turned slowly and went in the opposite direction. The city seemed awfully quiet. Maybe it was a result of a monotonous drizzle, maybe it was caused by an overcast sky; but yesterday's joy, fun, noise and commotion was gone. People were rushing along the walls and wouldn't even stop to look at merchants' stalls. Maybe they were just running away from the rain. Maybe. To Donna it felt like a scythe's blade was hovering over the city, just waiting to swish down and take somebody's life. She thought about Rosalina, the little girl who had made her "great escape" possible. Children and the old ones were the first to die. That was what she remembered from history lessons. The weak are the first to go. Poor Rosalina.

* * *

**_To be continued..._**


	8. The Volcano Day

* * *

**.8. The Volcano Day**

* * *

"No," the Doctor said. He got up heavily from the edge of a horses' feeding trough, his hair more dishevelled than ever, his clothing ruffled. Tiny dots of freckles were clearly visible on his pale face. "No, Donna, _no_. The TARDIS. That's our priority. We have to get out of here."

"But those people..." Donna protested. "Those black clad people. That Kathryn woman, and that Cuthbert. They're from the future! They shouldn't be here, they meddle with the history, and that _is_ our business, right?"

The Doctor gave her a stern look. Just a moment ago he had been running towards her like a madman, calling out her name (and it a bit, a tiny little bit, reminded her the way he had once dashed towards Rose), and when they had finally reached each other, the Doctor had lifted her in his arms and swivelled round, making white-washed, thatched buildings around the square swirl before Donna's eyes. But when she had told him her story and insisted on going to Allan's rescue immediately, the Doctor had scowled and moved away from Donna, his expression vividly indicating an immediate readiness to hold off any of her attacks. The tenth degree of stubbornness.

"No." He started down the street, pushing his hands into his coat's pockets. One moment, and he was ten steps away. Fifteen steps in Donna's case; the Doctor was marching quickly, as if he was trying to escape her. "C'mon, there's no time to waste."

"But, just... Look, the collar, see, they put that collar on my neck, this is supposed to be some sort of a micro-molecular filter," Donna said, trotting by his side. "Not something they would have in the Middle Ages, right? And there's Simon. We can't leave him like that... And that bloody collar is chafing my neck!"

The Doctor produced the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. He halted and for a while he twiddled with the circlet's clasp, only to step back, surprise on his face.

"I can't open it," he said. "It's deadlocked."

"Wizard!" Donna snorted. "So what, should I buy ear-rings and a bracelet that goes with it? Jewellery for life?"

"A _protection_ for life," the Doctor answered. "The micro-molecular filter. No bacteria and no virus can get through it."

"I thought the TARDIS was protecting us?"

"I thought so as well. The TARDIS we can't get to."

"But... We have to go back to that, what-do-you-call-it, abbey, even if it'll be only to make them take it off me!" Donna didn't even notice the note of irony and bitterness in the Doctor's voice. "And I want to give them a bit of my mind! I want to tell them what I think about kidnapping me, and imprisoning me, and taking bloody blood samples, and about sleeping injections, and about straw mattresses..."

"Donna, just stop for a mo..." The Doctor coughed suddenly, a deep, wet cough. Donna looked at him, surprised, but not scared. He turned his startled gaze at her. His eyes seemed unnaturally bright. He leant his back against the wall under a low thatched roof, and rested a hand on his chest. For a moment he looked as if he was analysing something, almost as if was staring inside his own body.

"Endotoxins entered the cytoplasm of my phagocytes," he said quickly. "I didn't even notice when it happened. Ooh, no..."

"_What_?!"

He doubled as he coughed again, at the same time gesturing to Donna to keep away. She stopped dead, an unpleasant knot in her stomach. A few droplets of blood appeared on the Doctor's lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked down at it, incredulously.

"I'm not... I'm not feeling too well," he murmured. He slid down against the wall and slumped onto the muddy ground. "Fever, headache, weakness, shivers, chest pain, cough and blood. It's impossible, but..."

"You're sick!" Donna yelled. "No! You _can't_ be!"

She made a step forward to lean over him, but he stopped her again.

"Don't come any closer. No."

"What's wrong with you? You _never_ get ill, you can't be ill, you're not even human!"

The Doctor sighed.

"I thought it was just a common cold," he said. "No, I'm not human, thanks for reminding me, but I can catch a cold, you know. It's just, you don't cough up blood with a common cold. So it's not a common cold after all."

"What then?" Donna screamed. "What?! Well, tell me, _what is it_?!

"The plague," he whispered.

Donna giggled. She pressed one hand to her mouth, but wasn't able to control herself, and she burst into laughter. She turned away from the Doctor and laughed hysterically, until she lost her breath.

"Donna, I'm not joking," the Doctor mumbled.

"I know!" she screamed, still standing with her back to him. "I bloody know! I know, you're not joking!"

She turned to him, her arms opened wide.

"It's just, it's _impossible_!" she stressed. "We are immune to the plague; you said that the TARDIS gives us immunity. You couldn't get infected. This... This is stupid, this is idiotic, this is _nonsense_!"

The Doctor wiped his sweaty forehead. He got up heavily, supporting himself with his hands and leaned his back against the wall again. He seemed equally terrified as Donna, but he clearly tried to control his fear.

"You can fly the TARDIS," he said.

"What?"

"Donna, you _know_, you can fly the TARDIS."

"What? No! No, I can't, bloody hell, did you forget I can't remember anything of your timelordly knowledge anymore?!" she yelled at him. "And what does it mean anyway? You can fly the TARDIS! What is _that_ supposed to mean?!"

"In case I..."

"Stop it! Stop with that crazy talk! Just tell me what you need, don't babble about flying the TARDIS; we have to do something; tell me what to do! Remember how you got poisoned. The sparkling cyanide? Remember – something salty? Ginger beer? The Towering Inferno? What do you need?!"

"Antibiotics. Within the first twenty four hours," the Doctor answered weakly. "Or spherozones. Nothing available in the Middle Ages."

He coughed again and gasped for air. Even from the distance of two or more steps, Donna could hear something crackling unpleasantly in his chest.

"Where are the cats when you need them?" he murmured.

"Cats?! What cats have to do...?"

"You have to retrieve the TARDIS," the Doctor interrupted. "You have to get out of here."

"Not _on my own_!" Donna yelled. Ignoring the Doctor's protests, she grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him with all her strength, as if she could bring him back to his senses this way. Even through the layers of his coat, suit and shirt, she could feel the heat radiating from his body. "Stop talking as if you were about to die! You can cure the plague. Right?"

"Donna... Oow, Donna!" The Doctor moved her away at an arm distance. "Just listen, you may have to consider the fact that in a few hours I will be of no use to you whatsoever. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. The bubonic plague is curable, that's right. But what I'd contracted is a pneumonic variety and it is deadly. Without treatment the mortality rate from the pneumonic plague approaches one hundred percent. I need powerful medication and I need it now, and the TARDIS is in the castle where we have no way of getting to. I know, I tried. Please, understand that you might have to deal with it on your own. You have to retrieve the TARDIS. She'll take you home; there's that program – a fast return – all you have to do is find the button on the control panel; it's right next to..."

"Enough!" Donna yelled. "_Stop... talking... rubbish_!"

"It's not rubbish. Donna, I... I don't know what to do."

For a while she looked at him, her eyes wide, her face contracted in an almost furious grimace. Suddenly she jerked at his sleeve, pulling him along.

"We're going!" she shouted. "C'mon, we're going!"

"Where?"

"Back to the abbey! Now! Move it! So you need a future medication? Well guess what, Kathryn's from the future! But of course, you didn't connect facts, did you? You are so busy protecting me, you can't think straight!"

Surprise smoothed the Doctor's flustered face. He almost sighed with relief. Donna wrapped his arm around her shoulders, as he could hardly bear his own weight. For the first time ever she was happy that he was so skinny.

"You bloody spaceman!" she continued angrily, hauling him down the street. "What would you do without me?"

"Nothing smart, that's for sure," he answered. "I'm complete rubbish without you."

Donna smiled against her own will.

"Oh you plum, come on, it's not far."

They walked down Wine Street, holding each other in an embrace, like a pair of lovers from a completely different time. People of Bristol stared at a tall, red-haired woman and at a slim man, pale as Death himself, stumbling and dragging his feet. Some of the townsmen crossed themselves seeing that unusual couple. Doors of houses were all closed; above the town hung clouds brimming with rain, and silence.

* * *

**_To be cured or not to be cured..._**


	9. The Shadow

_A short one, because I'm not very well (as well); I just hope it's not the plague. ;) Am I being punished for making my characters suffer._

_**Disclaimer:** It was you who decided to film only four specials this year. Don't blame a starving person for stealing bread, then. Weeelll, more like a sweet, hot muffin, really. :D_

* * *

**.9. The Shadow**

* * *

Kathryn, who opened the door, didn't even notice them at first. They were sitting on the doorstep; Donna was supporting the Doctor, who was leaning his shoulder against the wall.

"Oh," said Kathryn, once her eyes slid down towards them. "It's you. And this must be the friend you've been talking about?"

"Donna. My name is Donna Noble. And this is the Doctor. We need help."

"Yes, I can see." Kathryn's eyes were encircled by shadows and her skin was sickly greyish. "A medicine doctor?"

"Just Doctor. It's his name."

"Svegrid!" Kathryn called turning towards the dark abbey. "Bert!"

"It is a pneumonic plague," the Doctor murmured. "Just so that we're clear."

The woman gave him a piercing gaze. "When did the first symptoms appear?"

"In the morning," he answered. "Tiredness, muscle ache, shivers. But only a while ago I've felt that endotoxins penetrated my phagocytes... Very awkward sensation, really..."

Kathryn's eyebrows went up. Donna shook her head.

"He's not human," she said, the tone of voice she could use to say 'Don't ask.'

"He looks human," Kathryn noticed.

"Yeah, but he's not," Donna snapped irritably, the tone of 'Get over it' ringing clearly in her words.

"And he's sitting here, on your doorstep..." The Doctor coughed deeply. "While you are chatting as if... as if I wasn't here..."

"What species?" Kathryn bent over him. The circlet of the micro-molecular filter flashed from under her neckline as she moved. "What is your species?"

"He's a Time Lord," said Donna, peeking impatiently inside the abbey.

Kathryn goggled at her and then burst into a hysterical laughter. "That's... That's a good joke. Really. A good one. But seriously?"

"He's a Time Lord," Donna repeated angrily. "What's so funny about that?"

"They don't exist."

"They do," the Doctor murmured. "In me. Barely, though. If you won't share a few doses of spherozones, you'll be absolutely right, and the Time Lords will meet their extinction right here, on your doorstep. Very soon."

"Sorry." Kathryn stepped away, moving out of the way of two men, who quickly lifted the Doctor from the floor. The Doctor tried to walk, but his was dragging his feet. Donna pressed her hand to her lips, trying to stifle sobbing. Kathryn grabbed her hand, stopping her on the threshold.

"Really?" she asked. "A Time Lord? They belong in myths and legends. There was a story I've been told as a child... A bedtime story... I didn't know they really existed."

"Yeeeah. Exactly what the blonde at the Shadows Proclamation said." Donna shrugged her shoulders again. "Myths and whispers of the Great Ones and so on and so forth. You are acting as if you just spotted the last dodo; that's pretty rude."

"But that's good!" Kathryn exclaimed. "That's excellent!"

"Can't see why." Donna wrenched her arm from the woman's grip and squeezed her way through the narrow door, almost running as she followed the two men leading the Doctor away. They reached a large, low-ceilinged room, and Donna halted in the doorway gasping fearfully. There were many beds in the room, six of them taken. There were people in dark, tight clothing in four beds. The other two were taken by a woman in medieval clothes and by a young man, Donna instantly recognised as Simon. Several plastic bags of clear fluid were hanged over each patient, as they were obviously patients here. The fluid was slowly dripping into their veins.

"Is it a plague?" Donna whispered. "They have a plague, all of them?"

"Yes," There was a momentary hesitation in Kathryn's voice. "A very nasty strain of the plague. Four of our people got infected, and two aborigines. And God knows who else."

"But..." Donna sighed heavily. "This is... it's a fact, it is history... You can't change history..."

"No." Kathryn gave her a pale smile. "You're absolutely right. We are not allowed to change history. And now, if you let me examine your Doctor..."

"Sure," Donna stepped back, bumping into Cuthbert, who glared at her, his thick eyebrows furrowed. "Well, _what_?"

"How did you escape?" he growled.

"Through the window," Donna snapped.

"Stupid." Cuthbert rolled his eyes. "We only meant the best for you."

"Sure. While twisting my arms and sticking me with needles."

"You don't even know what's going on here, and you blunder out into the town, carrying the bloody factor with you wherever you go..."

"Bert!" Kathryn shouted. "Shut up!"

"Stop telling me what to do!" the young man yelled back at her, his face twisted in fury. "Stop pretending that everything will be okay! This..." He made a wide circle with his arms. "This is completely out of control now! And you can't change it! Nothing can! We are screwed, the whole lot of us! And the town is dead already! All is dead! All is gone!"

"_Bert_!"

"And it's our fault," Cuthbert finished, shaking with anger. "You hear me? _IT IS OUR FAULT_!"

"Right." The Doctor's flustered face appeared in the doorway. He looked Cuthbert up and down, then turned his gaze to Kathryn, her fingers twiddling nervously with a modern stethoscope. "I think it's high time somebody explained to me what's going on here? How, exactly, are we screwed? And how, exactly, is everything gone?"

"_CUTHBERT_!" Kathryn bellowed, trying to stop the young man from talking. He was too angry to pay attention to her words, however. He swivelled towards the Doctor, a manic smile replacing fury on his handsome face.

"There's no cure!" he yelled. "She won't admit it, but this town is doomed! No one will live through this! No one! We brought it on, and now everybody dies! The only thing we can do is blast Bristol to hell! If we want to save the world, we'll have to kill each and every soul in Bristol! Possibly ourselves as well! So how about that? Shall I shut up now? Shall I? _Shall I_?!"

Donna's eyes were jumping in between Cuthbert and the Doctor, to finally rest on Kathryn, who gasped and opened her mouth to another shout, but unexpectedly decided not to. She moved a shaky hand across her face.

"Are you quite finished?" she said quietly, her eyes filling up with tears.

Cuthbert bit his lips and nodded.

"What's going on?" Donna whispered, as the Doctor carefully closed the dormitory room's door behind him and shuffled his feet closer to two scientists from the future.

"I think it's time we talked," he said. "Am I right?"

Kathryn closed her eyes for a moment.

"I am sorry," she whispered. "I am so terribly sorry."

There was a shadow on her face.

* * *

_**To be continued...**_


	10. The Bristol Strain

_Took me long enough, sorry. Thanks a lot for reviews! You are **brilliant**!_

* * *

**.10. The Bristol Strain**

* * *

"So, it isn't the plague?" Donna asked.

They were standing around a high table in a small laboratory, which previously must have been some monk's solitary cell. There was only one tiny window there, too high up on the wall for them to actually see anything outside. A beam of pale light streamed through the window, full of whirling specks of dust that for Donna would always bring back unpleasant memories of Vashta Nerada.

"It was," Kathryn said. "Originally."

"It's mutated," Cuthbert added gloomily.

"No," the Doctor interrupted. "It couldn't have done that. It couldn't have mutated. Not here. Not now. Not on its own."

"Who said it's mutated on its own?" Cuthbert snorted. "Ever heard of the X-Factor?"

"As in the one where they sing and then...?" Donna shook her head. "No. That'd... that'd be... stupid."

"Oh..." Cuthbert snorted again. "Let me introduce you." He gestured towards a small screen located on the table, and touched a few icons on its green surface. A swirly thing appeared on the screen; all smooth lines and pointy outgrowths, and furry halo, and subtle, pastel colours. "Meet the mutagenesis facilitating artificial neo sub-particle X, also called the X-Factor. Isn't it lovely? Our little friend from the future. And the past."

"Thirty second century, to be exact," the Doctor said quietly, leaning over the table top and pushing his 'brainy specs' up his narrow nose. "It is lovely," he admitted. "And it is deadly."

He inhaled deeply, straightening up and sticking both hands into his coat's pockets, but halfway into this familiar gesture he went into a painful fit of coughing and had to bend down again. Donna's hand shot forward protectively. She grabbed the Doctor's sleeve in an attempt of supporting him from falling. The Doctor smiled at her and patted her fingers.

"But it shouldn't be here," he said. "Its manufacturing was forbidden and all the stock was destroyed, by my own people." He turned to Kathryn. "Thousands of years before your time," he finished.

The woman looked at him darkly.

"Some specimens survived," she said. "As they always do. They tend to survive somehow, in some obscure laboratory, out of the beaten track, in some desolate vault, protected by madmen."

The Doctor sat heavily on the edge of the table and tilted back his head, as if suddenly very interested in an arching ceiling. Donna knew he was really very, very angry.

"Humans," he hissed. "You did it again, didn't you? You went and you did it again!"

He jumped off the table and started pacing nervously. "So what happened?"

"There was an outburst of an unknown epidemic in an orbital laboratory seventeen, Glowglobe, the artificial moon of Smutta. By the time my team got there, everybody in the colony was dead. Over three thousand people. Within two weeks." Kathryn said, her voice breaking. "Before entering the base we flushed it with variable-spectrum radiation, making sure _everything_ stayed dead there. And we wore our micro-particle filters when we finally stepped inside..."

She dabbed at her eyes quickly. "They died... they all died... in labs, and hospitals, and in their apartments, and even kindergartens... dead everywhere. That... was..."

Donna moved closer and wrapped her arm around Kathryn's shoulders. The Doctor gave her a little, sad smile.

"Then we checked logs," Cuthbert said harshly. "And we found out that it was the X-Factor."

"You don't sound like you were very surprised," the Doctor interrupted.

"Well I wasn't." Cuthbert shrugged. "What surprised me was that they experimented with the Factor _and_ with _Yersinia Pestis_. I mean... the _Plague_? It's just... It's just demented, that's what it is!"

"No, but, why?" Donna whispered, her lips trembling, "Why would anyone...?"

"Military," the Doctor barked. "Am I right?"

There was no response. The Doctor stopped pacing for a moment. He could hardly catch a breath now and his face was gleaming with perspiration.

"Humans!" he said again. "It's _Nana-san-ichi butai_, it's the Unit 731 all over again!"

"The Unit?" Donna whispered.

"Second World War, Donna, not so far from your own time," the Doctor growled. "A secret unit in the Imperial Japanese Army, experimenting with... well, with methods of killing people. They'd use everything – heat, cold, electricity, high pressure, low pressure – everything you could imagine – and some things you wouldn't be able to – including pathogens; including the plague. They bombed cities in Hunan Province in China with bacilli bombs in 1941. Thousands of people died there as a result of bubonic plague epidemic."

"In 1941?" Donna whispered. "But... I thought..."

"That you'd get wiser?" The Doctor moved his eyes from her to Kathryn, unpleasant sneer twisting his pale lips. "That you'd get smarter? That your survival instinct would finally kick in? That'd be something, wouldn't it? But no, thousands of years in the lovely, bright future, you've woken up old demons again. What was it this time? Flea bombs? Infected food and clothing? Poisoned candies for children? Did you arrive at the station, dressed in your protective suits and micro-particle filters, to examine the outcomes, scribbling your first impressions on a sensor-pad palmbooks, and looking down at the dead?"

"Doctor," whispered Donna, her eyes large with shock.

"What?" he shouted at her harshly. "I've seen it! I've witnessed it! I've done my best not to see it again; never... ever... again..."

"Doctor, stop it," Donna said quietly. "Please, stop."

"My name is Kathryn ViaCaelldor Dorina, and I am a Chief of Medical Research with the Trigalactic Peace Committee," the other woman said slowly. "I am not military. I am a scientist. I'm a doctor. I came to Glowglobe to help."

"Fat lot of good _that_ did!" Cuthbert spat angrily. "Look where it landed us. Bloody _prehistory_!"

The Doctor had to grab the edge of the table again to steady himself. He glared at both scientists, gasping for air. His lips turned blue and all colour vanished from his face. Even his fingernails seemed covered with bluish nail varnish.

"It's Middle Ages," he corrected, more out of habit than anything else. "It _has_ its history, so it can't be prehistory, can it? And what are you doing here, anyway? How, on Earth, did you manage to pull a time jump, while carrying dangerous bacilli? Unless it wasn't an authorised time jump, which means you did it without the Committee's permission, which means they don't even know you're here, which means you have no backup, which means you're on your own... But why? Why did you come here for?"

"Some of my crew got infected," Kathryn said sternly. "We had faulty equipment, a couple of collars were broken, and some of my colleagues contracted the X-Factor modified plague. Can you see my point now? I had the dream-team, the best lab and unlimited resources. The only thing I didn't have was..."

"Time," Donna whispered.

"But why coming here?" the Doctor demanded. "Why not go to – I dunno – New Earth, for instance? Why not go to one of those hospital worlds of Asclepiossia?"

"Why not jump into the future?" Donna asked.

"What?" Kathryn turned to her, surprised.

"Eeerm, no, Donna, time jumps into the future are not possible," the Doctor whispered.

"Really?" Donna blinked. "Why?"

"They... just... they aren't, ok? It's a bit different than Time Lords' technology, you know."

"You never tell me anything," she grumbled.

"Well... I... I... It's not like you _listen_, anyway."

"I listen. But you babble about conch-shaped moons, and stomach-headed Regurgians, and mustard skies, and frozen oceans, and thousand-petalled Flowerfolk of Whatitsname all the time. How am I supposed to know what's even important?"

"All's important!"

"But I can't _remember_ it all!"

"Well I can't do anything about it!"

"You are weird," Cuthbert said thoughtfully. "Whoever you are, people, _you – are – weird_."

Both the Doctor and Donna looked at him rather sheepishly. The Doctor cleared his throat and Donna shuffled her feet, her eyes down, to avoid Bert's gaze.

"Yeah, sorry," the Doctor murmured. "Not really important right now, is it? So... erm... why here?"

"I needed _Yersinia Pestis_," Kathryn answered. "I needed the original, untampered _Yersinia_, and it was nowhere to be found anymore. Maybe it still exists in its pure form, in one of those remote labs I've told you about, but it would take too long to find it, to make scientists admit to keeping a stash, and to wait for politicians to quarrel over it. I had to go to the one place I was absolutely sure I would find it. A perfect spot and a perfect time. And so it happened it was here, now. In Bristol. In 1348."

"Thus presenting the un-expecting Earth with a Bristol Strain of Black Death," Cuthbert finished.

"I didn't mean it!" Kathryn exclaimed. "I didn't know four of us were already infected. It didn't show on a scan! It wasn't caught by time-jump security protocols!"

"Why?"

"I don't know!"

"We've been sabotaged," Cuthbert said darkly. "That's why."

"Oh, you and your conspiracy theories," Kathryn snorted. "It was an accident. A stupid, ugly, horrible accident."

"Why don't you call it fate?"

"Because I don't believe in fate!"

"Neither do I!"

"Right," the Doctor interrupted. "Not feeling any better here, you know. What, with being infected and all. Shall we begin then?"

"Begin what?" Cuthbert growled.

"Looking for a cure," the Doctor answered with a bright, but ghastly smile. "Is this your main lab?"

"It is," Kathryn responded, before Bert managed to say that there was no cure.

"Bit small," the Doctor complained, groping inside his pocket for the sonic screwdriver. "Oh, never mind. It'll do. Can I get a chair, though? And could you move the scanner closer to the fusion microscope, and get me some specimens, and I wouldn't say no to a nice cup of tea."

"What are you going to do, Doctor?" Donna asked.

"Oh, not much." He smiled at her insanely. "Just find a cure and save the world. The usual."

She started smiling back at him, when he suddenly swayed, his eyes losing focus and body becoming limp. Before any of them managed to react, the Doctor keeled over and fell to the stone floor.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	11. Being Human

_We are not out of the woods yet, sorry Donna, sorry Doctor, sorry everyone... So I'll just leave the Doctor half dead and working on the cure to save the whole of the humanity while fighting the pneumonic plague; and Donna by his bedside, out of her wits with fear, having to watch half of the town succumb to a terrible diesease; and **I **will go for a well deserved holiday to a very hot country, to rest by the pool and bake in the sun. Justice at last, mwahahaha...!_

_**Disclaimer:** I don't have any rights to him and now I let the Doctor came down with the Plague. How bad am I? I really need to go and iron my ears..._

* * *

**.11. Being Human**

* * *

It was hot. It was very, very hot. It was like being inside the Vesuvius, inside the escape pod, spit roasted from the outside by Pyrovillian foot soldiers. Actually, it was even hotter than that. Far beyond the point where the body melts and the brain evaporates. Far beyond the _hot like hell_ point.

The Doctor struggled to open his eyes. When he finally managed to lift his eyelids a little, he realised that moving his eyeballs was much too painful, so he only looked up, into the darkness, slowly recognising a pattern of arched bricks on the ceiling. And then he tried to think. Ow, that was a challenge! Just breathing and thinking, and looking up.

"Donna?" he whispered. His voice was hoarse and almost soundless; just a painful gasp.

"I'm here."

He felt cold fingers closing on his own burning hand. It was so pleasant he closed his eyes for a little while, and then had to struggle again to open them back.

"Doctor?" Donna whispered. "Can you hear me?"

"Nothing wrong with my ears," he croaked. "It's my eyes that won't move."

"Oh!" Donna exclaimed and started stroking his hair, which was also painful, as even his follicles were making him miserable at the moment. "I thought... I thought..."

"Except I don't move my ears... much," the Doctor concluded. "How long did I sleep?"

Donna made a sound as if swallowing something, and when she answered her voice was soggy and shaky. "Almost eleven hours."

"What?!" The Doctor tried to spring up, which resulted in lifting his head a few inches above the pillow, and in a coughing fit that almost sent him into the state of unconsciousness again. "Eleven...? Why did you let me... let me... sleep... for... so long...?"

"I couldn't wake you up."

"Well, of course you could!"

"No. I _couldn't_. I tried, and I couldn't," Donna sobbed. "And I think you needed some sleep. You don't sleep enough. You hardly ever sleep at all. Which is dumb. Cause sleep is healthy. You should have your healthy sleep every day. You wouldn't be so skinny."

"What?"

"Oh, Doctor!" Suddenly Donna's hair was all over his eyes, lips and nose, as she buried her face in a hollow of his neck, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, as good as she could in that awkward position. She was sobbing loudly, and her tears were rolling down the Doctor's neck and under the collar of his opened shirt. The Doctor lifted his right hand (the one made of lead), and patted Donna's head.

"There, there," he mumbled comfortingly. There was a plastic needle protruding from the back of his hand, connected via clear tube to a bag of liquid suspended on a makeshift wooden rack. The Doctor lifted his other hand (the one made of iron), and noted another needle inserted into a vein above his thumb, but not connected to anything.

"A pingpillow," he wheezed. "No... Wait... A pincushion. I look like a pincushion. Needle to say."

That was supposed to be funny, but Donna sobbed even louder, and more tears rolled down his neck towards his shoulder blades. The Doctor tried to blow her hair off his face.

"Donna... Donna? Donna, can you...? _Donna_!"

"I'm sorry." She sat up, wiping her face with both hands. Her eyes were red and swollen, so was her nose. "I'm sorry I melted like that, but I was _so_ worried."

"Naah," he rolled (or attempted to roll) his eyes. "What were you worried about?"

Donna looked at him incredulously. "Are you _serious_?"

The Doctor had to ponder it for a moment. "I don't know. All's a bit... fuzzy right now. _Am_ I serious?"

"Oh, God!" she sighed. "You are delirious. It's the bloody fever talking!"

"Right. Fever. I need to go back to the lab," the Doctor noted briskly. "I lost way too much time already. Would you be so kind, and help me up?"

"You're not going anywhere, Doctor," Donna protested. "You are sick, and you're staying in bed."

"Yeah, reasonable, good plan, just..." He used his elbows to prop himself up. "...It's not really helpful, is it? I need to be working on a cure."

"You can't. You tried. And you collapsed. You are too weak."

The Doctor didn't respond. He was looking around the large dormitory room, which eleven hours ago seemed almost empty. Now it was anything but empty. All the beds were taken, and several straw mattresses on the floor as well. The Doctor tried to count patients, but his mind wouldn't work, so he only gazed at them in shock.

"So many..." he whispered. "So many..."

"Well, yes," Donna whispered back. "We hope we were able to trace all the infected." She sniffled. "Allan's here. Just over there, by the window. Cuthbert's trying to find Thomas."

"Oh," the Doctor said. "And Simon?"

"Simon's dead," Donna answered.

"I need to be in the laboratory," the Doctor stated, his face suddenly taut.

"OK then." She grabbed his elbow and helped him to a sitting position.

The whole room swayed. The Doctor grasped Donna's forearms, hunching his shoulders. He gasped in surprise. "Whoa!"

"Whoa what?" she prompted.

"This doesn't feel right."

"Well I should think so."

"I just... I have no idea what's going on!" He wore this expression again – the one as if he was trying to look inside his own body, without rolling his eyes backwards of course; as if he was trying to look inside _mentally_, if it made any sense. To be quite honest not many things with the Doctor made any sense anyway.

"I always know," he continued, his eyebrows furrowed so much they actually connected above his nose. "I always do. All the time, without even thinking, I know what's happening to me."

"Like, when you said that... something... entered your... phagocytes?" Donna asked breathlessly. The Doctor might have been skinny, but he was using her arms as a support for a bit too long, and she could feel her shoulders beginning to tremble with exertion.

"Exactly! But not now. Not now." He looked up and straight into her eyes, his mouth twisting in distaste. "This is so weird! This is so... so... _human_!"

Donna pulled her hands back, wrenching them free from the Doctor's grip. Her eyes, still wet with tears, widened in disbelief.

"Human?" she repeated. "_Human_? So, that's what you think about us? Weak... and... disgusting... and... pathetic... _humans_?"

The Doctor tried to get up anyway, but his knees gave and he only slumped back on the bed.

"Donna?" he whispered urgently. "Donna..."

"So, that's what you see when you look at all... this..." she almost shouted in a whisper, gesturing angrily at the dormitory, and walking backwards, as if she was trying to run away from him. "_Humans_?"

Her mouth trembled and more tears rolled down her cheeks. She swivelled sharply on her heel, to hide her red, splotchy face. The Doctor looked as if she had slapped him on a cheek – his eyes suddenly alert and startled.

"Donna, no..." He coughed and continued hoarsely. "Wait... Donna... I didn't mean it... Please, Donna, I'm sorry... I didn't... _Donna_!"

She halted but wouldn't face him.

"What I meant," he said, "was that it was so... horrible... not knowing what's going on with me... being in the dark... just letting the illness take its course..."

Slowly, Donna looked at him over her shoulder. He was leaning on the bed, propped on his elbow, shaking with exertion.

"It is so... humiliating," he whispered quietly. "So lonely... so scary..."

Donna sobbed.

"And it hurts..."

She wasn't even sure if he really said that; his voice was so weak now.

"I'm sorry."

And she was by his side again, crouching by his bed and tilting her head to look him in the face.

"Oh, shut up, you plum," she whispered.

"It's hard," the Doctor mumbled. "Being human. It's really hard."

"Don't I know that," she said. "It is bloody hard, and it is bloody unfair, and now you know that as well, just... Why? Why, Doctor? You are not human... or are you? Oooh, look at me, I'm talking complete rubbish now! But it's all your fault, I mean... It's all _my_ fault. I wanted to see a bit of the Middle Ages, didn't I? How daft was that, eh? Why did you even listen to me? You were right. Donna Noble and the Middle Ages equals trouble."

"No," the Doctor wheezed. "It's not your fault. Don't you even think that."

"No, but..."

"Donna, help me get to the lab," he interrupted. "Please. I can sort it. I can help them. I can fix this."

"I know you can," she smiled a pale smile. "Come on."

She helped him sit up again and then stand up, his arm wrapped round her shoulders. They walked towards the door slowly, step by step, the Doctor struggling to catch each breath, his hands clenched in fists and face screwed in effort.

"I just need to stay alert," he whispered, as they walked down the narrow passage and towards an arched gallery surrounding a small yard, then along the corridor and into the tiny lab again. Kathryn was there, bent over the microscope. She looked up and sighed in disbelief.

"You? I thought..."

"Yeah," the Doctor said impatiently. "So, where do we stand?"

The woman swivelled on a lab chair. Her face was pale and her eyes were red.

"Right now..." she said gloomily, "...everybody dies."

"We can't have that, can we?" the Doctor snorted. "Fine, so, that is what I'll need..."

Donna hardly listened to a long list of essentials the Doctor required to save the world. It didn't matter how difficult it was. It didn't matter how long it would take. He was there. He was conscious. He was doing whatever he was doing the best. And Donna didn't care if he was a spaceman, or if he was rude, and stubborn and annoying. A glimmer of hope sparkled in her heart. A tiny little glimmer of light in gathering darkness.

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**_To be continued..._**


	12. Everybody Dies

_I've been away for quite a while, I am sorry I didn't respond to your reviews, but I avoided the Internet for a while. In the meantime I've read a brilliant novel of the plague by Karen Maitland called "Company of Liars." It is a bit gruesome, but then, the plague is. A short chapter now, but I didn't forget about the Doctor in the lab and Donna by his side._

_**Disclaimer:** No, not mine. Sorry._

_

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**.12. Everybody Dies**

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The town wasn't quiet anymore. Everywhere he went, there were sobs and screams, and sounds of doors and windows being nailed shut, horses' whinnying and creaking of overloaded carts full of packs, and food, and townsfolk trying to escape the imminent death. And there were those horrible people, all clad in drab robes, with hoods covering their faces, ringing their little bells and shouting out loud: "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"

Thomas crouched behind a low wall near the castle's gate. He'd been everywhere in town, but Allan was nowhere to be found, not to mention the Doctor and his sister, Donna. He'd ask the kids to help him, but now their terrified parents locked all of them inside their houses, and Thomas thought that was reasonable. Pestilence was walking the streets of Bristol and it was smart to get out of its way. Yet Thomas had to find Allan, because Allan was his best friend in the world, and he would do exactly the same for him. That was what the friendship was all about, wasn't it? Anyway, Thomas was almost positive that Allan had somehow managed to get to the castle. It was the last spot in Bristol he hadn't check yet.

He waited until a little wicket gate in the larger door squeaked open, and a ginger head popped out. Thomas jumped to his feet.

"Oi, you!" he shouted in a whisper. "Are you Liam?"

The owner of a ginger mop, a young boy with a pale and scared face, looked at him with screwed eyes.

"That I am," he whispered back. "You Thomas? Well, don't just stand there, hurry up. They'll have me flogged if they find out. C'mon, move it!"

Thomas sprinted across the yard and into the wicket, almost colliding with the boy. Liam banged the door shut and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

"They bloody think they're safe behind these walls," he said. "Bloody fools, if you ask me. No walls can stop the Great Mortality. Once it's in the town – everybody dies. We're all doomed."

"Brilliant," Thomas gasped. "So, have you seen Allan?"

"Allan? No." The boy shook his head. "He's sent a word, though. A day before yesterday it was. Asking for a blue box. Well, I know where it is."

"The blue box!" Thomas snorted. "What use is that for me? I thought Allan was here!"

"He never showed up," said the boy. "That box's weird though. They had a smith to try and open it, and he failed. They tried to pry the door open with crowbars, tried to hack at it with axes, and nothing worked. A wooden door, but stronger than iron. Wonder what's inside that box; must be a treasure, or a relic, like some saint's bones or something; what do you reckon?"

"I don't know and I don't care," Thomas spat angrily. "Are you sure Allan wasn't here?"

"Absolutely. The gate's been locked, none's getting in or out without them in the castle knowing. Well, except for you, that is."

"Yes, thank you, Liam," said Thomas. He sighed and ran his fingers through his black curls. "Right, I'll be going then."

"Going where?" the boy asked. "The town must be a nightmare. Come on, I can hide you in the kitchen. Lots of food and no bloody madmen looking for vampires and Jews, and other usual suspects, burning incenses and houses, and killing folks in the streets."

"I'll risk it." Thomas lifted the latch and opened the little door. "Thanks for letting me in, Liam."

"You're mad, you are," the boy answered. "All of you lot, minstrels and mummers – mad."

Thomas bent down in the wicket. "God be with you, Liam."

"Yeah, God speed."

And he was in the dying town again, his heart heavier now than it had been before. He was walking slowly through its streets, keeping to slanting walls and shadows under thatched roofs. It was raining again and streets were muddy. He saw a few people praying in the square, by the stone cross, some of them flogging themselves with whips. The women's hair was cut short, and their feet were bare. The men's backs were all bloodied and their shirts torn. They were kneeling in ankle deep mud, rain pattering on their heads, their voices rising and falling monotonously as they begged God not to save them, but to cleanse them with blood and pain and fire. Most of townspeople, though, wouldn't even think of joining in the prayer; they seemed more angry than pious; and they were giving the flogging few unfriendly stares. Thomas shrugged as he passed them – he thought they were mad to think it was God who had brought the plague upon them.

Then he saw a small cart full of dead people. He had never seen so many dead people before. And not like that – sorrowful and horrible, piled up one on top of another, their eyes still open and milky, their faces blackened and gruesome, horrible stench of the pestilence permeating the air.

Thomas started running. The rain was a blessing now, as it was hiding his tears. Not that it mattered anymore; nobody would think him weak for crying at such desperate hour. He reached the Cook's house and banged on the door, swallowing last tears and wiping his face with a sleeve.

"Who's there?" Robert's distrustful voice asked from behind darkened planks.

"It's me. Thomas."

"Are you sick?"

Thomas shrugged and shuffled miserably on the threshold. As reasonable as Robert's question was, it still hurt. But then, Thomas might have been sick with the pestilence, endangering Robert's family if he entered their house.

"I'm fine, Robert," he answered in a shaky voice. "No fever. Just drenched."

"Oh, Thomas, my word, come in, lad!" The latch rattled and the door swung open. "Where have you been? Angelica has been worrying sick. No word from you for two whole days."

"I was looking for Allan," the boy wheezed as he slumped on a little stool in a corner of the room. "I couldn't find him. He's gone. And the town went mad. Some are blaming sailors, some are blaming all out-of-towners, and some are blaming themselves. Blame spreads faster than pestilence. But how are you doing? Anybody sick in the household?"

"No," Robert answered quietly. "But our neighbours... The whole family... dead within a day..."

"And a horrible death it was too," Angelica added in a hushed voice.

"Is it going to be the end of the world?" Thomas mused. "Like the flood, only without the Noah's ark?"

"It is just the fever," the Cook answered sternly. "Born of the summer's heat, to be gone by the winter's frost."

"What summer heat, though?" his wife whispered from behind his back. "It wasn't a hot summer so far; it wasn't hot enough to breed the fever. And how are we to survive till winter?"

"We'll stay in the house," Robert said. "We'll lock the door and we won't let anyone in. We have food and water. All we have to do is wait."

"All we _can_ do is wait," Angelica corrected. She reached out to her children and cuddled them tightly. "Just wait."

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**_To be continued..._**

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	13. On a Pale Horse

_It gets harder and harder to write about the plague. Sorry it took me so long. It is difficult to describe emotions we all share at some point in our lives - when all we can do is wait. Anyway, the next chapter is almost ready, so you won't have to wait so long anymore. Thank you for reviews! Please, don't stop!_

_**Disclaimer**: Doctor Who - not mine._

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**.13. On a Pale Horse**

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So the Doctor was procuring a miracle, which was more or less normal, but the miracle manufacturing took time. A lot of it. After a while Donna got tired with staring at the Doctor's bent back and listening to his mumbling and to his rasping, painful breath. And she became upset with the tone of the Doctor's exclamations of "No-no-no-no!" and "That can't be right!" and "Stupid!" He'd turn to look at her then, to give her a pale, unconvincing smile, and to say "Let's start again, shall we?" There were moments when the fever would take the better of the Doctor, and he would rest his head on his forearms for a while, or murmur something unintelligible, or look around as if surprised or scared of the surroundings. Still, Kathryn was there, with a pneumatic syringe and an assortment of phials. So every time the Doctor would start drifting away, the syringe would hiss, the medicine would pump into his veins, and the Doctor would get a grasp on reality again, and return to work, even more exhausted than before. The Doctor was procuring a miracle, but to look at him doing it was too much for Donna.

There was something else as well. She felt helpless again. A daft temp, not knowing what to do, how to help. The most important woman in the universe, right! Try the most useless one! There was the plague burning in the streets of Bristol, and there was the X-Factor killing even faster than the plague, and Donna was just sitting there, watching the Doctor racing death.

She left the lab quietly and for a while she just wandered along the abbey's long and dark corridors. Finally she found Cuthbert, his arms full of plastic bottles and bed sheets, trying to get to the dormitory. She held the door open for him, and at the same time a terrible odour almost knocked her over. The sickness had its smell and it was as bad as it gets; as if infected people were rotting from the inside even before they died. Cuthbert looked at Donna ironically as she stumbled backwards; shock on her face. Anger helped her regain her strength.

"Right," she said. "How can I help?"

For a moment Cuthbert looked as if he wanted to snap at her, but he reconsidered.

"You can change bottles with solution," he answered. "Have you seen how it's done?"

She nodded briefly, and Cuthbert handed her several containers with solution. He motioned her towards a bed at the end of the dormitory, right by the small window. Donna moved forward hesitantly. She whispered some comforting words to the withered figure curled under bed sheets and started replacing the bottle, her hands shaking badly. She wasn't good at it. She wasn't good at all. Pain, and fear and despair were suffocating her almost as badly as the horrible stench. And she was an inadequate nurse, fiddling with the bottle for much too long, and then struggling to remove air bubbles from a clear tube, so they wouldn't get into the sick man's circulation and stop his heart. Which would be a small mercy, if you thought of it like that.

"Donna?"

She turned towards the hoarse whisper.

"Allan." She smiled, although her lips trembled. "You awake?"

"What time is it?"

Donna moved closer to his bed and sat on a wooden stool. She wasn't quite sure if her legs would bear her. She realised suddenly that it was almost completely dark outside – another day withering to a rainy dusk. Somebody lit oil lamps and flickering shadows were now playing on stone walls of the dormitory.

"It's late," Donna said.

"Me mum'll be upset if I'm not home by nightfall," Allan whispered.

"It..." Donna stuttered. "It's all right, she knows."

"Good for nothing, me," Allan said. "Just a big, fat disappointment."

"No, you're not," Donna sobbed. "Don't say that. You're brilliant. You're a star."

"A star," he sighed. "Stars are in the sky. That's where me mum is. With the angels. Will I be with the angels soon?"

His face was pasty and blotched, and his fingernails turned black. Donna knew he was alive only because of all the liquids constantly being pumped into his veins; all the antibiotics, and sferozones and whatanots she couldn't even name.

"Rest, Allan," she said gently. "You need to rest."

"It's too loud," Allan whined. "So loud. The bells. The cries. The rain. Storm's approaching."

He rolled his head on the pillow, his fair hair plastered to his temples with sweat.

"_And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder_," he said slowly. "_And I looked and behold, a pale horse. And his name that sat on him was death._"(1) He went quiet again.

In the light of the oil lamp Donna's eyes grew large and glossy. From behind the window, which was overlooking a narrow street, she could hear cries, sobbing, horses' neighing, clatter of hammers nailing up next doors, bell-ringing and voices of criers: "Bring out your dead!" With a sigh she got up from the stool and patted Allan's hand gently.

"I'll see you in a while," she said. "You just hold on, ok?"

She picked up remaining bottles and moved to a bed to her right, peeling protective layer of foil as she walked.

"Hi," she said quietly to a young girl, curled on the bed. "I'm Donna. Let me just..."

She looked down at the patient and gasped. The bottle slid through her fingers and fell to the floor. The girl was dead. She must have been dead for a while. Her eyes were half opened, lips twisted in what seemed to be a silent cry. Donna pressed one hand against her own lips. Her chest constricted and she wasn't able to breathe for a moment, so she desperately lifted her chin and gulped for air, with a loud, strangled sob. She swivelled and rushed towards the dormitory's door, tears blurring her vision. She tripped and landed on the stone floor, hurting her knees and twisting her left wrist.

"What are you doing?"

Cuthbert's irritated voice brought Donna back to reality. She looked up at him, shocked and trembling.

"She's dead!"

"Which one?" Cuthbert turned to look.

"The girl. Over there. She's dead!"

"She's not the first and she won't be the last," Cuthbert said sourly. "Now, get a grip, will you?"

"But... But..."

The young man bent over her suddenly and grabbed her upper arm. He pulled her up, his fingers digging painfully into Donna's flesh. She yelped and tried to break free. Cuthbert squeezed her arm even harder and pulled her closer.

"And what did you think would happen?" he hissed in her ear. "We've been looking for a cure for centuries. Did you really think your Doctor would come up with it in time?"

He laughed bitterly.

"Everybody in this room will die." He grinned at Donna. "Everybody in this town. Everybody in the world. This is the Judgement Day, Donna, and we have brought it upon ourselves. This world dies, and future dies with it. You and me, and your brilliant Doctor. No exceptions."

Donna stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief, her lips and chin trembling. Oddly, the pain in her shoulder helped her regain balance. Her eyes narrowed, as she looked up, straight into Cuthbert's face.

"Oh, now, stop it!" she exclaimed. "The Doctor is going to fix it!"

"Right, because he's a genius," Cuthbert spat. He let go of Donna's shoulder. "He's a genius, and a magician, and an ultimate saviour."

"He _is_ a genius!" Donna said sourly. "You'll see..."

"All I can see right now is a whole world going to hell." The man shrugged. "And not with a bang as well."

"That's all you can do?" Donna sneered. "Complain?"

"No." He started angrily. "I, for one, have a plan B ready."

"Plan B? And what's that?"

"Oh, let's just say I'm going to make sure that the world won't end with a whimper."

"Huh?" Donna squinted at him. "You're babbling. What are you babbling about? I don't need no babbling right now, _thank you very much_!"

Cuthbert laughed in her face and pushed her away.

"Babbling, am I?" he said. "At least I am not afraid to act."

"Act how? Do what?" Donna yelled after him, as he stormed out of the dormitory. "Wait, tell me! Cuthbert! Act how?"

He vanished in the gloom of the corridor. Donna straightened up and wiped her face in a sleeve of her dress. She took a deep breath.

"Yeah," she whispered to herself. "That sounds like trouble."

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(1) The Bible - Book of Revelations

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_**To be continued...**_


	14. Not with a Whimper

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**.14. Not with a Whimper**

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"_What_ did he say?" Kathryn asked.

Donna looked at her, suddenly even more scared than before.

"He's going to see to it that the world doesn't end with a whimper," she said slowly and turned to the Doctor. "Does it mean anything?"

"It's a poem," the Doctor murmured. "T.S. Eliot, 'Hollow Men', a _brilliant_ poem, if you ask me... _This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper_."

"I wish people would stop _quoting_ to me," Donna growled. "You don't do that in normal life, you know. You don't go around quoting poems all the time. It's... It scares me like hell!"

"_Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the Shadow_,"(1) the Doctor whispered.

"Have you heard what I've just said?!" Donna asked.

"What? Oh, yes, sorry. It's just so fabulous, good old T.S." The Doctor wiped a hand across his forehead. His hair was plastered flat to his head and he had a two-day stubble on his chin. His pale skin was bruised everywhere tiny capillaries had popped, and the whites of his eyes were stained red. His voice was dry and rasping. He moved slowly, cautiously, like an old man. Donna wouldn't recognise him anymore, but for his clothes, and the sonic screwdriver in his raised hand.

"Where did he go?" Kathryn asked. "Cuthbert?"

"I've lost him," said Donna. "It's dark in the corridors, and he was running. Kathryn... what he said... is it true? Is it going to spread all over the world and kill everyone?"

"_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned_,"(2) the Doctor quoted promptly. Donna's face twitched a little, but she just bit her lips.

"If we can't stop it..." Kathryn hesitated. "Yes. There are worlds in the universe that became barren because of the X-Factor. Whole planets devoid of intelligent life, dead."

"But if it kills everyone on Earth," Donna gasped. "It changes history. It changes the past. And the future. Because if the world ends today it means... It means that we were never born, we don't exist..."

"We're out of our timelines," the Doctor said, turning back to the lab table. "I guess it's the only thing keeping us alive."

"So, what? Are we going to vanish, like in that film, 'Back to the Future'?" Donna demanded.

"I don't think so," the Doctor murmured. "That'd be too easy, really."

Donna glared at the back of his neck for a moment, upset by his casual tone.

"How is your research going?" she asked finally.

"Good, good." The Doctor waved his hand at her, not even turning from the microscope and from the tangle of odd bits of medical equipment. "Bit slow. But good."

Donna raised her eyebrows at Kathryn. The short-haired woman sighed quietly and grabbed Donna's elbow. She led her to the corner of the room. For a moment she just looked at Donna with her lips pursed.

"It is _not_ good, right?" Donna asked quietly.

"No," Kathryn admitted in a whisper. "It's not. We've been looking for a cure for hundreds of years. To hope he would find it within a day or two... It's just impossible."

"Nothing's impossible with him," Donna smiled. "Believe me."

"We don't have unlimited time here as well," Kathryn noted. "When the outbreak reaches the critical point and becomes an epidemic... Nothing stops it."

Donna swallowed hard. "And how long until...?"

"A few more hours."

"_Hours_?!"

The Doctor stirred by the table and shushed at them irritably.

"So, do you know what's Cuthbert's plan B?" Donna whispered.

"I can't be sure, but I think he'll try to blow up the town," Kathryn answered.

"_What_?!" Donna and the Doctor asked simultaneously, the later jumping from behind the lab table, a clean specimen slide in his hand.

"But he'll kill us all!" Donna yelled.

"That's not the problem!" yelled the Doctor. "The thing is he'll only make it worse!"

"He'll try to stop the disease from spreading by exterminating the affected population," Kathryn said, her eyes wide and face pale. "This is what you do, when all the other means of controlling the outbreak fail."

"That's people we're talking about here, not cattle!" Donna said.

"The blast will blow the X-Factor high into the atmosphere of the planet," the Doctor exclaimed. "Air currents will carry it all over the globe. The moment Cuthbert sets off the bomb, this thing becomes a pandemic."

"The explosion will kill every living organism within its range," Kathryn protested.

"It will pulverise living organisms, but the Factor is tiny, it is minuscule even when compared to a virus, and it is partially artificial, there's no way it'll be affected by the blast!" The Doctor clenched his fists, crunching the specimen slide in his hand. Donna winced at the sound.

"We have to stop him!" The Doctor looked around as if searching for an exit. "You have to stop him, Donna!"

"Me?!" She stumbled backwards. "No way!"

"Donna, I have maybe an hour left, and I need Kathryn here, and the patients need Svegrid, which leaves you to stop Cuthbert," the Doctor said quickly. "You know you can do it!"

"No, I don't know! I don't even know where he is!"

"My guess would be – underground," Kathryn said. "The dungeons. I mean, the cellars; they are not really dungeons, just storerooms, you know, in the basement," she added very quickly.

"The dun...?! The _dungeons_?!" Donna blinked in shock. "You want me to go and look for a _madman_ with a _bomb_ in the _dungeons_?! Alone?! You can't be serious?!"

The Doctor opened his hand and looked down at his bleeding fingers in mild surprise. He sighed.

"Donna..." he began.

"Yeah, all right," she interrupted, cold creeping up her cheeks. "You _are_ serious. So, I'll just go there and... improvise, yeah? Just talk to him and, I dunno, distract him? In the dungeons. With the bomb. _Wizard_!"

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." She looked around quickly, picked up an iron candlestick from a shelf and weighted it in her hand. "You just hurry with the cure, ok? I've seen Allan and... and he's not looking good, you know?"

The Doctor nodded slightly. He reached into his pocket and fished up a small torch. He tossed it more or less in Donna's direction, but she was able to catch it anyway. She checked if it worked and blinked when bright beam of light caught her eyes. With a candlestick in one hand and the torch in the other Donna marched to the door and out into the dark corridor.

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1 "Hollow Men" by T.S. Eliot

2 "The Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats

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**_To be continued..._**


	15. The Serum and the Wave

_Ok, this is my longest chapter ever! I've tried my best to connect all the threads (well, almost all of them). So, here it is for you to review:). _

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**.15. The Serum and the Wave**

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The dungeon was damp and very dark. The torchlight barely tickled the shadows. There were scuttling and squeaking sounds on the floor, so Donna wouldn't even dare to look down. She needed all her bravery to face the darkness, she had nothing to spare for mice and rats. Her heart was racing. The hand squeezing the candlestick was sweaty and cold.

An abbey's dungeon at night. It was a little bit too 'Most Haunted' for her liking. She marched down the long passage, trying to come up with some reasonable plan, but all she had was a stubborn thought '_a bomb_!' There was the plague, there was the X-Factor, there was the Doctor's illness, there was Cuthbert's madness, there was Allan dying in the dormitory, and now there was a bomb.

She passed some shelves and barrels. You could fill a king-size duvet with all the cobwebs hanging from the arched ceiling. She _hated_ spiders, especially after a close encounter with an empress of the arachnids she had had in the past.

She shouldn't even be there. It wasn't her job; her job was providing common sense comments, and gasping at wonders, and keeping the Doctor as sane and polite as possible. She was a _tourist_, for God's sake, not a hero! Oh, right, it was her who had dreamed of meeting knights and dames. It was her who had insisted on staying in the Middle Ages. But she had never bargained for _that_!

She turned another corner and saw the light.

With a quiet gasp she switched off her own torch. She had no plan yet, but there was no chance she would ever come up with one anyway. "Make it up as you go," she thought. "If it works for him..." Her fingers gripped the iron bar of the candlestick so tightly, it was a wonder the metal didn't bend like a spoon in some psychic's hands. She inched slowly towards a small door at the end of the tunnel.

***

Now there was music in the air.

The Doctor shook his head and squinted at the fusion microscope's screen, full of lovely, furry halloed killers. There was no music; it was just a fever. He wasn't used to fevers. Whenever he would be sick, or wounded, or poisoned, his body would regenerate, either completely or partially, and it wouldn't take ages. Three days at best. Or at worst. Or whatever.

But there was music in the air now.

He knew it; it was... it was... so familiar...

_His mobile phone_!

He reached into his pocked and searched for the mobile in between dozens of extremely important items, such as a harmonica, a packet of jelly babies, an old photograph and a handful of dog biscuits.

"Donna?"

"It's a bloody_ maze_!" Donna's voice breathed angrily from the speaker. "I'm bloody lost! And... the reception is amazing, I mean, I'm deep underground. Plus, there's no network here, right, so how does it even work? I'm in the _Middle Ages_, and I'm on my _mobile_!"

"Did you find Cuthbert?" the Doctor asked, a bit flustered.

"He's not here. But I've found the bomb," Donna answered. "I think. It looks like a bomb. And... I probably shouldn't have used my mobile just now, 'cause mobiles, like, disrupt the functioning of medical equipment, yeah; so they would set off the bomb as well; oh my God, oh my God, oh my...!"

"Apparently you didn't set it off just yet," the Doctor said curtly. "So there is a bomb?"

"Yeah," Donna confirmed. "Well, there is _something_."

"How does it look?"

"Small. Square. Metal."

"Can you open it?"

"_What_?!"

The Doctor pinched at the bridge of his nose. His head hurt. His whole body hurt. He was acutely aware that he'd have to wait two more hours for a next painkillers injection, as he had already reached the dosage's limit. Talking required breathing, and his chest seemed tight, as if he was trying to inhale deep underwater. He had no time for none of that.

"Can you open it?" he repeated quietly.

"Are... You... Bloody... _Mad_?!" Donna wheezed.

"We need to know if it's really a bomb, and if it is a bomb, if it's armed," the Doctor said, trying to keep his calm.

"Wait," Donna snapped.

The connection was broken. The Doctor glanced down at the mobile's LCD screen, just as the phone blipped and flashed an icon for incoming MMS message. Donna had sent him a picture. The Doctor smiled slightly as he opened the message. Donna was definitely a mobile phone queen; she wouldn't part with it even for a second, and she certainly knew how to use it. There was a reason why all Donna's clothes had pockets.

"What is it?" Kathryn entered the lab, carrying a handful of phials. The Doctor moved the mobile across the table.

"A communicator of some sort?" Kathryn guessed. "Kind of a vone, right? Very old fashioned." She looked closer at the picture and swore under her breath.

"A bomb?" the Doctor asked.

"An explosive unit, used for deep demolition, for terminating projects," she confirmed. "We had to bring some of them to Glowglobe, in case we wouldn't be able to sterilise the base, to stop the disease from spreading. But they were locked in the vault. Bloody Cuthbert, how did he even manage to carry it through the chrono-jump?"

"A lot of stuff got carried through the jump," the Doctor said darkly. "Is it armed?"

"See that little circle, there?" She pointed to the corner of the container on the mobile's LCD. "It's flashing, right? Then it is armed."

"How do we disarm it?"

"By entering the code. There's a touchpad on the lid."

"What code?" the Doctor asked.

Kathryn gave him a look.

"The _right_ one," she snorted. "And, no, I don't know the code. I am a scientist, not a minesweeper."

"Brilliant." He rubbed his face, stubble of beard feeling strange under his fingers. "Any idea how long do we have?"

"There's a touchpad on the lid," Kathryn repeated.

"Right." The Doctor sighed and hit the mobile's speed-dial button.

"I am sitting here with a _bomb_!" Donna's voice exploded from the phone. The Doctor flinched and moved the mobile away from his ear.

"Yeah, I know, there's a touchpad on the lid," he said.

"I'm not _touching_ it, sunshine!" Donna hissed.

"Yes, you are."

"I _hate_ you!"

"Just... just touch it, Donna. Kathryn says it's safe."

"I didn't..." Kathryn started, but the Doctor shushed her immediately.

"It's perfectly safe, it's just a touchpad, sort of a control panel," he said.

There was some rustling on the other side.

"Donna?"

"Twenty eight minutes." Donna's voice was flat now, and quiet, and downright scary. "We have less than half an hour."

"Are you sure?"

"There are big, bloody numerals in front of my nose, on a bloody touchpad of a bloody bomb!" Donna yelled hysterically. "One resembles a swan and the other one resembles a snowman... Now it resembles a scythe! So, yeah, I am sure! That's twenty seven minutes! What kind of bomb is it anyway?!"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, _duh_?"

The Doctor raised his eyes to Kathryn.

"Ionic wave," she said breathlessly. The Doctor sighed again.

"It'll take the whole town with the blast, Donna," he said. "At least twenty five miles radius. No way we can escape it."

"I _knew_ it!" He could hear Donna breathing quickly; he could hear her fear. "Right, you have to tell me what to do. I mean, which wire should I cut? The red one or the blue one? I can see no wires here, mind." She chuckled crazily. "And I have no clippers."

"Wait, Donna," the Doctor said quietly. "Just wait for me."

And he disconnected the call.

"Doctor..." Kathryn started, panic in her voice.

He was looking down at his own hands. It seemed to last forever.

"Doctor?" the woman tried again.

"Yeaaaah," he sighed. "That'll have to do."

"What?"

"Do you have anything resembling a flare gun? A toy rocket? A firework?" he asked quickly.

Kathryn shook her head, confused. "A flare gun? You mean a light blast candle?"

"That'll do," the Doctor said. "I need it in the yard, now."

"What are you going...?"

"I'll spice the town with serum." He smiled at her and winked.

"I thought it wasn't ready."

"No. _I_ wasn't ready." The Doctor grabbed a micro-molecular filter from a tangle of equipment on the table top and clasped its collar around his own neck. "But I am now."

***

Twenty seven minutes. Twenty six. Twenty five.

_Not a very long time to live. Not much you can do in twenty five minutes. An _ironic wave bomb_. What the hell is that? And who came up with such an idiotic name? Although I can see the _irony_ quite clearly, thanks a lot! Sitting on the bomb! I'll probably evaporate immediately. I won't even see the blast. Bloody Cuthbert! _

Twenty two minutes.

She looked at her phone and flipped it open. Then she closed it again.

_The Doctor will come. Any minute now. He'll come and disarm this bloody bomb, and he'll find the cure, and everything will be just fine. That's what he does; he just swans in and saves the day... I said I hated him. How stupid of me. Shall I call him and tell him I... I _don't hate_ him? Ooh, rubbish, he knows!_

Twenty one minutes.

_It is so dark down here. What if he doesn't come? I don't want to die alone. I don't want to die, _period_! I should call him and tell him that. I just want to hear his voice, but he'll be busy right now, saving the world, the usual... Ok, I'll text him. He doesn't even have to answer. It'd be nice, though. If he answered. But he won't; there's no time for texting; what am I thinking about?_

Twenty minutes.

Donna flipped the mobile open and dialled the number. The phone seemed to ring for ages, until finally it was picked up. She swallowed the tears and gathered all her strength to say quietly:

"Gramps?"

***

Cuthbert was walking down the narrow street. The rain soaked him through and lumps of clay weighted down his shoes. It was very dark; he wasn't used to such darkness. His world, his time – everything was bright and clean; there was a halo of light surrounding the entire planet. But here, it was just darkness. He was lost at its heart.

_And that's how the world ends_...

He had removed his collar. There was no time for poetic justice, but he had made a gesture anyway. He'll die with them in the cradle of civilization that created his bright and clean world far away in the future. Here in the rain and mud...

He slipped and fell to his knees. His hands sunk in the mud up to his elbows. There was somebody sitting under the wall. He looked like a pile of rags. Cuthbert's face was close enough to the man's face to see his features in a dim candle light streaming from cracks in a shuttered window above. The man looked like a golem made up of clay. His hand shot forward and grabbed the front of Cuthbert's soaked shirt. The _smell_! As he struggled to break free, Cuthbert looked down, at the man's blackened fingers. Acral necrosis, the scientist in Cuthbert's head said, gangrene causing flesh to rot, while the man was still alive.

Right now Cuthbert hated the scientist inside his own head.

He wriggled free of the dying man's grasp, and crawled backwards through the muddy alleyway. He slumped against the opposite wall; completely drenched now and shaking with fear. He sobbed suddenly, his handsome face twisted in grief. How he hated the people who had sent him on that mission. Damned military! He was to observe and report, nothing else. But then several collars malfunctioned, and Kathryn wouldn't terminate the infected team members. Too soft, too weak! And the idea of coming here! Nuts! And now the world was about to end, with only Cuthbert left to prevent the total annihilation.

He wasn't proud. He wasn't full of it. He was very scared and very sorry.

He turned his wrist to look at the watch.

The bomb would go off in seventeen minutes.

***

"No, Gramps, I'm fine," Donna said in the darkness and dampness of the abbey's cellar. "I just thought I'd call to see how you were... Yeah, I know I've seen you yesterday, it's just... It's been a bit longer for me, you know?"

She wiped a tear rolling down her cheek.

"Oh, I am in the Middle Ages right now," she said putting on a brave face, as if her grandfather could actually see her. "Yeah, not as funny as it would seem... No, I haven't seen any knights so far. You know how it is with the Doctor – back doors and ordinary life approach. Yeah, the boring stuff."

The numerals on the touchpad of the bomb flipped to number fifteen. Fifteen minutes to live.

"How's mum? She all right? Bossing you around, is she?" Donna laughed quietly at her grandfather's answer. "Oh, tell her... tell her... I love her, yeah?... No, I'm really fine Gramps. Don't worry about me. I'm with the Doctor, you know. I'm safe..."

"I have to go now. Call you later." She sniffled.

"Love you too... No, _I _love you more! Bye, Gramps."

She flipped the mobile closed and squeezed it tight in her hand. She didn't feel any better, except that now she felt as if she had been given a permission to cry. So she cried. No one was watching anyway.

***

Kathryn stepped aside to observe the Doctor's frantic dance in awe. He seemed to be in every corner of the abbey's yard at the same time – fiddling with the light candle, juggling with test tubes and phials, peeling isolation from cables and twisting wires together, setting the ignition, and doing a thousand of other things, that seemed pointless and slightly crazy.

"Are you sure it'll work?" she asked.

"Has to."

It wasn't the most comforting answer ever. She shuddered in the cold. The rain had drenched them both within a couple of minutes. And each minute was bringing them closer to an ionic wave explosion.

"There!" The Doctor halted suddenly, flipped the security cap open and dug his thumb into the remote's red button. The light blast candle ignited, hissed up and disappeared in misty skies. Then there was a sharp snap of explosion and a blaze of light flooded the yard. Kathryn could have sworn she saw a million tiny dots bursting from the bright centre of explosion. Was it the serum? Was it the cure? Was it just her hope making her see things?

The Doctor was looking up as well, his face ghastly pale in the white light of the light blast.

"Ha," he said quietly and swayed on his legs. Kathryn jumped closer and grabbed his elbow to protect him from falling down. The Doctor looked at her, mildly surprised.

"Go to the dormitory," he commanded. "Spray this. It'll be faster this way."

He pushed a little canister in Kathryn's hand. Before she could even answer, he was walking already, staggering as if drunk, back towards the abbey's corridors. The candle's light didn't even start to dim in the sky when the Doctor was gone.

***

Cuthbert flinched at the blast, but it wasn't the wave. Not yet. Somebody had set off the light blast candle. Funny. There was no one to help them here. And there was nothing to see here as well, really. Just a dark, sad, dying world. The town was doomed. He was doomed. There was nothing more to say.

***

"Have you seen that?" Thomas jumped from the chair and rushed to the window. "It is so bright outside. It's not even dawn yet. What is it?"

"No, don't open it!" Robert Cook followed him, and pushed both his hands against the window, holding it shut.

"No, but, what is this light?"

"It is the Pale Horse, it is," Robert's father, Andrew, answered gloomily. "And the Pale Rider. And Death is his name."

Angelica wrapped her arms around her children, trying to cross herself at the same time. Robert pushed Thomas away from the window.

"Don't open, lest he sees us!"

"It can't be Death," Thomas said stubbornly. He turned to look at the Cooks family, his dark eyes full of hopeful light. "It can't be. It's too bright!"

"We wait," Robert barked at him. "We wait here! We wait and see."

***

Donna realised that she had started edging away from the bomb. She sniffled and snorted ironically at the same time. The Doctor said – twenty five miles radius. One or two steps wouldn't make that much of a difference, would they. Still, she didn't have to sit on the bomb. That would be... That would be just... too _doctor-like_.

There was a sudden noise and Donna screamed.

Something crashed and something rolled, thudding dully on the stone floor. Then there was another crash and somebody's voice said disdainfully: "Oow!"

"Doctor?!"

"Donna?"

"It's you, oh my God, it _is_ you, oh my God, what took you so long?!" She physically lifted him from the floor, pushing aside heavy barrels, and caught him in a tight hug. "I was beside myself! I was so scared! You _prawn_!"

"Ow!" the Doctor repeated. "Donna... Donna... not... now..."

"Yeah!" She pushed him away and slapped his shoulder with a strength that made the Doctor wince painfully. "Disarm it first!"

Just as she let go of him, the Doctor rushed towards the bomb and sunk to the floor next to it. He procured his sonic screwdriver and started jabbing it at the metal box.

"Just... don't trip it by mistake," Donna added, glaring at his hunched shoulders. "'cause that would be stupid!"

"I won't..." the Doctor murmured. "It's simple. Doesn't take a genius, really..."

Now it was Donna's turn to wince.

"Sure, it doesn't take a genius to spend twenty eight minutes with an armed ironic bomb; actually it takes a bloody fool, like me!" she hissed.

"Ionic," the Doctor corrected automatically. "Not like a column. Ions aggravated to form a wave pattern of a blast..."

Donna sighed. "Just switch it off, will you?"

"Done." He rested one elbow on the metal box, as he half turned to look at Donna. "You're not a fool, and I am sorry, I am so sorry, but you have to help me... again."

Donna glared at the bomb conspicuously.

"You sure it's safe?"

"Yeah."

Another glare.

"Yes, Donna, it is disarmed, quite harmless now, so would you..."

"Did the timer stop at zero, zero, zero one?"

"What?!"

"You know – one second to go?"

The Doctor pulled a face. "No, sorry to disappoint, still had more than three minutes. No time for dramatics, really." He coughed and slumped even lower on the floor. "Donna, it is all fine now; the town's got its serum, people should start to recover, the bomb is disarmed. It's done. It's all right now. You are safe."

"_I_ am safe?" she squinted at him suspiciously. "Why would you say _I_ am safe? What about _you_?"

"I'll explain," the Doctor sighed. "But I think I need to lie down now. And I wouldn't mind getting out of this place. So, will you...?"

They started towards the exit, leaving the ionic wave bomb behind, now just a metal box, as dangerous as a tin can. Donna had to wrap the Doctor's arm around her neck again. His hand was blackened and cold in her grip. There was an orchestra playing in his chest with every breath.

"What about you?" Donna repeated.

"It's the cure," the Doctor sighed again. "No time to perfect it. I used the Factor to carry it and I taught it to attack sick cells; to attack, and destroy, and then switch off themselves. But I had no time to fine tune it. So I told them to attack everything that's alien."

"What?!"

"All the cells and pathogens of non-earth origin. Like the X-Factor/Plague mutation. So my serum will kill everything that does not belong to the Earth's environment."

Donna stopped at the top of the stairs.

"But _you_ are alien!" she wheezed.

"Hence the collar." The Doctor touched the micro-molecular filter clasped around his neck. "Stops my cure, my serum, from entering my system, and, basically, attacking each and every cell of my body."

"So you've created a cure for... for us... knowing that it wouldn't work for you? That it would kill _you_?!" Donna twisted her neck to look at the Doctor's face. "That's bloody... _heroic_!"

"Bed," the Doctor whispered, looking back at her. "Now."

His eyes closed slowly, as he blacked out again.

* * *

**_To be continued..._**


	16. What Dreams May Come

_I didn't know how I wanted to write this chapter, although I knew what was happening in it. Finally I decided on the Doctor's POV. But then I had to do this Volcan mind-meld, so, you know, if my head explodes, it will be all because of him. He has the weirdest thoughts :D_

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**.16. What Dreams May Come**

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His robe was beautiful and hateful, and the high collar was chaffing at his neck like mad, and his teeth were familiar and strange at the same time. His body tensed and arched like a bow, throwing him to his knees, the heavy robe spreading around him in stiff folds. For a moment he admired gorgeous tiles underneath a layer of dust, the patches his hands had cleared on the floor glimmering in the redness of a setting sun. Such attention to the detail. At some point all art turns unto itself, and then degenerates, withers, ends. "I would make the world better," he whispered. There was a falling sensation as one of his hearts faltered and then stopped completely, a resounding silence on the right side of his chest. Now tiles crumbled and there was a chasm of time and space looking back at him, making him feel small, unimportant, just a speck in a vast, godless universe. He convulsed and screamed at the responsibility that universe imposed on him. "It's not my fault!" The pain was overwhelming; the cells of his body dispersing into nothingness and oblivion. "Pride is considered to be the worst of sins." Who was speaking? Was it himself talking to the tiled floor? "If there's a hell, it's build on a foundation of pride." Was he proud? With his face inches from the dust covering the floor; was he proud? His body was failing; blood flow slowing down; internal organs switching off one by one. Dying. He reached out and his hand rested upon the cold stone of Rassilon's tomb. Everything dies. Why was he so surprised? The old friend's stony eyes pierced his defences. Reminding him that he could, if he wanted to, tear the wholeness of the known world apart, destroy it, rebuild it, make it his own, his kingdom, his hell. One step at the time. Omega would do it. "I did it."

"Hush now, Doctor. You're delirious."

Right. Understatement. He was running now, still carrying this hateful, stiff robe on his shoulders, its rim flapping around his ankles, pointy shoes kicking up clouds of dust. Running away from the schism that looked back at him as he peered into its heart. A howling abyss of possibilities he somehow memorised... or not memorised... not really... They burned themselves into his very being – a dark mirror revealing his real face – the face of a coward. "I could have turned the key in the door of the universe. It was there, in my hand, waiting. But I just let it tick away." A red hot blast of explosion hit him square in between his shoulder blades and his body arched again, searing pain flowing from the centre away to the extremities, then back, in confusing, uneven waves which made him convulse and scream out.

"What's going on? What is it? Is he in pain?"

Please, help me. He tried to call out their names, but no names came. He used to know so many people – friends and enemies. Frozen with fear he searched his mind over and over again, but they were gone, erased. He was mumbling now; he could hear his own voice – moaning and whining and begging them to stop, _stop_, _STOP_!

"Doctor?"

Who? What Doctor? Was it supposed to be his name? It was a joke, a meaningless sound – nothing more. His was a different name, a proud name, an old name. A name he could no longer remember. He halted and lifted his hands to his throat, fumbling with a clasp at the high, circular collar. "President! President, wait!" There was a brooch there, round and cold, engraved in ancient symbols; but then everything was ancient here, everything was turning unto itself, degenerating and dying, and he had to escape the stench of death. "But there are rules and regulations, you know. Can't walk against the tide, can I?" His fingers bled, but the clasp gave way and he shrugged off the hateful robe. There was a smooth fabric of a brown, pinstriped suit underneath, and his bleeding fingertips rested for a second on a loose knot of a silk tie. One disguise into another. While he hesitated (he almost found himself, it was so close, the name, buried away, but still alive), they caught up with him, and as they couldn't stop him, they stabbed at his back. Cold steel sunk into his flesh and he gasped, not able to shout or cry anymore.

"Just... just hold on, Doctor! Fight it! Please, fight it!"

How could all of it be gone? He reached deep inside his mind, desperate to find an anchor, to stop himself from falling, and there it was – a name.

"Donna?"

"_Doctor_!"

Blimey, she could yell!

"Donna."

He opened his eyes. The world flipped back into its rut. He wasn't running and nobody was stabbing him on the back. He was lying flat on the bed, a rough blanket on top of him, heavy as sheet of lead. There was an arched ceiling above and a pale light was seeping through the small window. His eyes focused slowly. There she was – her ginger hair curtaining her pale face.

"My... noble... Donna..." he whispered with effort.

"You _dummy_!" she whispered back.

He smiled at her. But it wasn't all right. He knew it as soon as his back arched again, sending a bolt of agony through his muscles and nerves.

"Kathryn!" Donna yelled. "Kathryn, _do_ something!"

"At this point..." the other woman begun, but Donna wouldn't let her finish.

"I don't care what point it is! Why is he _doing_ that?!"

"Do you really want to know?"

A moment of hesitant silence. Then: "No."

"I can make him comfortable," Kathryn said.

"Please, do," the Doctor thought.

"He... He can't," Donna whispered. "He's not even human. He has... He has this... binary cardiovascular... system... you know... Two hearts..."

"Which means his lungs capacity is considerably smaller than human's," Kathryn said slowly. "He is suffocating. I'm sorry, Donna, but two hearts can't help him now. At this point his whole organism is septic; it is shutting down, and convulsions are just a symptom of his body screaming for oxygen..."

"_Enough_!"

Blimey, she could yell!

"She's right," he whispered. He felt Kathryn's cold hands as she injected something into the crook of his elbow. Pain subsided a little and his mind cleared a further notch. "Donna, she's right. Don't... don't yell at her. She can't help. There's no cure. Not for me."

"Stop it! Both of you! Stop it!"

"I'm sorry, Donna," the Doctor tried to say clearly and bravely, but he didn't feel brave at all, and his voice was just a harsh rasping sound. "I'm so sorry. I should... never..."

And that was it. His throat tightened, he gasped for air, there was no air, Donna's face blurred and turned into a pale oval surrounded with flames, then it all went grey and he had to open his eyes wider to see anything in the haze, didn't even try to breathe anymore, that was too difficult, just tried to find her face in the long, dark tunnel, a tunnel vision, no air to the brain, he blinked and after that all just turned dark. That was it.

But then it wasn't.

He breathed in and his hands shot upwards, trying to catch something. He was falling. The right hand caught the fold of Donna's sleeve. An anchor. He breathed out. And in. And out again. His vision returned and he saw her face above his face – funny, no tears this time, just pale cheeks and large, shocked eyes.

"Oh... my... God!" she said.

They were both on the floor and the Doctor's head was resting on Donna's lap. That was weird. But comforting. He rolled to his side, away from her scared eyes, turning his back on her like a sleepy kid in his bed, grabbed Donna's knee as if it was a side of a cushion and pressed his cheek to her legs, coughing and gasping until his breathing slowed down and his body relaxed. Then he closed his eyes and sighed quietly. He felt safe, with Donna's hand softly swiping his hair away from his forehead. Safe enough to fall asleep. Just not yet.

"How do I look?" he mumbled.

"What?"

He checked his teeth with a tip of his dry tongue. "Am I... ginger?"

"You wish," Donna said.

"I didn't regenerate."

"No, you didn't."

"Hmmm..."

He closed his eyes again, immediately sliding into sleep. Thankfully, he didn't dream this time.

* * *

**_To be continued... (except for torturing the poor Doctor... so much...)_**


	17. Survivors

_**Disclaimer:** Still not mine, but you can't tell me I harm anybody... Can you?_

**

* * *

**

**.17. Survivors**

* * *

"Don't even try to get up!"

"Why?"

"Because... Because you are not ready to get up."

"Everybody else..."

"They had the cure. All you had was... I don't even know what it was."

"You."

Donna snorted and slapped the Doctor's shoulder with an open hand. He winced comically, but Donna was angry.

"You owe me a hell of an explanation!" she growled. "What was it? What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. I was sick. I got better."

"Right," She slapped him again. "You were sick. And you died. You actually _died_, Doctor. _Then_ you got better. And this is officially the weirdest thing I've ever said."

"Yeah, it is weird, yes," the Doctor admitted, wincing.

"No, what's weird is that it's the second... no the third time you chose not to regenerate," Donna said.

He blinked slowly.

"I didn't choose it, not this time, and it's not like I had much to say in that matter anyway," he said. "You don't often have your spare receptacle hand at hand. But you're right, I should have regenerated. Only I didn't. Which, at the end of the day, is quite nice. I kinda like this incarnation. It's foxy. _You_ like it."

"I don't I have a choice, do I?" Donna said and started giggling. "Could you regenerate as, let's say, George Clooney's look-a-like? Or that bloke's from 'Swordfish'? Not Travolta, the other one? Or...?"

"No." The Doctor shot her a sideways glance, full of injured pride. "I wouldn't regenerate as a _bloke_. I don't do that."

"You've just said you had no control over the process," Donna pointed out, happy to catch the Doctor in his own trap.

"That would be an..." There was a whooshing sound, and the Doctor jumped out of his bed, past Donna's arms, trying to stop him. He looked haggard and wild – barefoot, wearing just a pair of crumpled trousers and an old T shirt hanging on his skinny frame like rags, his hair unkempt and rather greasy. "Oh, yeess!" he exclaimed, "Oh, you beauuuty!"

The TARDIS was materialising in the middle of the empty dormitory, and it seemed that she was doing it with much more whooshing, flashing and drama than usual. All the time the Doctor was running from side to side, as if he couldn't wait for her to become solid in one spatial-temporal location; when she solidified, he was at her doorstep in one, long jump, his hands splayed on the ship's camouflage, his cheek pressed to her blue planks.

"There you are!" he whispered. "Oh, baby, _have I missed you_! Couldn't find me, could you?"

The ship answered in her humming, singing voice. Donna cracked a smile. "Theirs was a story of unusual love," she said in a low voice. "But how fair is that? I'm nursing you for weeks, _you plum_, and the bloody wooden box gets all the hugs and kisses?"

The Doctor turned round immediately, a wide grin across his pale face, and rushed towards Donna, going in for a bear-like hug. She swirled out of his way. "Just joking! Get off me!"

The Doctor halted, with his skinny arms open wide, and a fading grin on his face. Slowly he lowered his arms, plunging his hands into his pockets.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I wasn't sure she'd find me."

"How did she do that anyway?" Donna asked, suddenly regretting _not_ hugging him.

"Oh, I've programmed her to look for me if I'm away for more than forty eight hours."

"We've been here for over a week!"

"Yeah, I know." The Doctor beamed at Donna as he dived into an explanation. "But, see, my body was full of the X-Factor, and the X-Factor, being an artificial and highly sophisticated construct, interfered with my biological make-up to the point where the TARDIS got confused and wasn't able to find me. I'll bet it was the X-Factor that stopped me from regenerating as well. It had happened before, you know. Once they had pumped me with anaesthetics and stuck those probes into me at the hospital, and it had scrambled the process completely. It had taken _hours_ to regenerate, and when I had finally crawled out of the morgue, I hadn't had a clue where I was and what was going on."

"Whoa!" Donna lifted her arms defensively. "A _morgue_?"

"Yeah!" He beamed even wider. "A metal drawer, a shroud, full works. I even had a tag on my toe."

"Too much information," Donna said weakly. "I'm just glad she's here now and we can finally..."

The Doctor looked over her shoulder.

"Kathryn."

The short haired woman entered the dormitory. She looked around, as if finding it hard to recognise the place. It wasn't really surprising; now that the room was empty of beds, bunks and sick people, it seemed much larger and airier. Kathryn's steps on the stone floor resounded with a small echo.

"What is this thing?" She nodded towards the TARDIS.

"My ship," the Doctor answered proudly.

Kathryn tilted her head critically. "It is small and noisy."

"She's not. She's just happy to see me."

"She shrinks when she's happy?"

Donna snorted with laughter. Kathryn just smiled.

"Well, I hope she's much bigger on the inside," she said and produced a medical scanner from her lab coat's pocket. She flipped it open and pointed it at the Doctor's chest. "Both hearts pumping," she noted. "But you must slow down for a while till you'll get your full lungs capacity back. You may feel slightly out of breath for a while. I'd prescribed you some pills, but I'm not sure how they'd worked on a Time Lord. As it is, I advise rest. Quiet place, preferably at the sea-side, mild climate, no stress, comfort food and absolutely no running."

"She made you say that." The Doctor pointed at Donna.

"Still, it is a perfectly sound advice," Kathryn said, shrugging her shoulders. "You are still healing. Good news is that there's no sign of the X-Factor in your system. I have no idea how your body managed to destroy it, and I would gladly spent a couple of years studying you and looking for answers, but something tells me I'd have to chain you to the dungeon wall."

"That wouldn't stop him for long," Donna pointed out.

"Did Svegrid manage to get everybody through the chrono-jump ok?" the Doctor asked.

"They are back at Glowglobe and fighting the good fight." Kathryn smiled, but her eyes were serious. "Cuthbert broke down completely. I almost feel sorry for the prick. We had found him in the street, no collar, _Yersinia_ positive already, blabbering about atonement. But it is not for him to pay the debts." She shook her short hair. "It wasn't his fault."

"It wasn't your fault either," the Doctor said seriously. He got his hands out of his pockets and grabbed Kathryn by the shoulders. She shrugged again.

"I decided to come here to study the Plague. I made that call. And people have died. It makes me responsible, doesn't it?"

The Doctor's long fingers squeezed her shoulders.

"I hope you understand..."

"Oh, I do," she said. "Still, I am going to stay a while. Just to make sure the X-Factor's really gone. And if I can help a few people in the process... Well, a bonus."

Donna knitted her brows but remained silent.

"Just be careful," the Doctor whispered, and let go of Kathryn arms.

"I will." She turned away from them, trying to hide tears sparkling in her tired eyes. "Well, I have to make sure all our stuff is gone and lock the chrono-gate. I'll ask Allan to come and say goodbye. He's still here, poor boy, he wanted to bury his friend, but we had to destroy the body. He seems heartbroken."

She drew a long breath and looked back at the Doctor and Donna.

"Well, see you then," she said.

"Thank you, Kathryn," Donna answered, and the Doctor waved his hand with a smile.

The Doctor waited for Kathryn to leave the dormitory, before unlocking the TARDIS's door and hesitantly stepping inside. Donna followed, quiet, deep in thoughts. There was no running – the Doctor slowly walked up to the ship's rota and looked up at the crystal column. Tiny smile lifted corners of his mouth. For once his eyes were calm and soft. He reached out and touched the control panel. Donna thought she knew what he felt. He was finally home; after all that struggle, and pain and fear, he was home.

Still, she had to ask.

"Is she going to stay behind?"

The Doctor sighed and pursed his lips, his smile disappearing immediately.

"Is Kathryn going to stay in the Middle Ages?" Donna asked again. "Because she shouldn't. She'll meddle. She's a doctor, for god's sake; she won't be able to stop herself from meddling."

"The X-Factor is gone," the Doctor whispered. "But there's still the Plague. And it still kills half of Europe's population. Over three million people in the next two years. And then it comes back in 1361, and in 1369, and then every five to twelve years, and then it reappears in London in 1665, and it keeps killing. And we... we could stop it. With simple enough antibiotics or sferozones, we could end it once and for all. Just think about it. We could save them all."

Donna braced herself as if she was about to plunge into icy water.

"No, we couldn't," she said sternly. "The Plague is a fixed point in time, and we can't. And you, of all the people, should know that."

The Doctor's gaze slid down onto the ship's instruments. He was silent for a long while – a wide eyed, stubborn silence Donna was scared of. Then he looked at her.

"You've changed," he said, quietly, but with an angry undertone.

"You've changed as well," she answered quickly.

He nodded slightly, agreeing with her.

"Remember what you said in Pompeii?" he asked. "_Just save someone_?"

Now Donna nodded, her eyes widening in fear.

"Just save someone," the Doctor repeated. "I wonder..." he faltered.

Donna waited.

"I think about you, humans," the Doctor continued after a while. "I look at you, I watch you, and now, finally, I'm starting to see you for what you really are. I see how you fight your mindless little wars. I see how you hate, and kill and destroy each other."

Donna shifted uncomfortably, a grimace of distaste twisting her lips, but the Doctor didn't seem to notice. He was just standing there, hands in his pockets, chin lifted up, eyes distant, long shadows marking his cheeks.

"And then I see how you go and you... and you just save _someone_," he said. "Just someone."

Donna let go of the withheld breath.

"Makes you wonder," the Doctor murmured. Again he seemed to be looking inward, completely unaware of his surroundings.

"Yeah?" she prompted.

The Doctor blinked and looked at her as if awoken from a dream.

"Just makes you think about how brilliant you really are. That there is this need, this impulse, this imperative somehow imbedded in your species, which, no matter how bad things are, makes you step forward and save somebody's life."

Donna twiddled with a handle on a control panel.

"Call that brilliant?" she snapped. "That we are able to kill millions and then save one?"

"That you are able to save one," the Doctor said. "While we, the Time Lords, were sitting and watching from afar... Always watching... Never getting involved..."

"Not you."

"I..." his voice broke. He cleared his throat.

"You saved me," Donna whispered.

"Yes, but what does it mean?" he asked.

"You tell me."

"I think I need a shower," the Doctor said turning on his heel. "I smell like a ghrlaak tahck pah. Or worse."

He emerged from the one of his ship's endless corridors nearly an hour later, wearing a white shirt and a bottle-green tie underneath a dark suit jacket Donna had never seen before; wet hair in artistic disarray; hands in his pockets; carefree quality back in his stride. He gave Donna a brilliant smile as he entered the steering room. If it wasn't for his wizened face and dark circles around his eyes, Donna could have sworn that the last week had been just a bad dream.

"Time to say goodbye," he said as he stretched his arm to Donna. He wriggled his long fingers, waiting for her to take his hand, charming smile brightening his whole face – except maybe for his deep, dark eyes – they remained serious. "Come on, Allan's waiting."

They walked to the door together, but at the threshold Donna fell back a step, and just followed the Doctor, who was striding briskly out of the TARDIS. She didn't really want to see the gloom dormitory again; the place where so many people had suffered and where some of them had died. All she wanted was to leave this place in time behind and never – ever look back. The pale, medieval light met her eyes outside. She blinked.

The young man was sitting on a wooden bench opposite the TARDIS. As the door squeaked open, he jumped up, straightening his clothes and smoothing his hair. He was pale, but not as pale as the Doctor, and Donna could hardly believe she had been sitting at his death bed just a few days before.

"Allan," the Doctor exclaimed. He squeezed Allan's hand and gave the young man a hearty pat on the shoulder. "You're looking good! Feeling fine, are you?"

"Aye," Allan admitted. "I am quite fit, actually. Still, the lady doctor tells me you've brought me back from the dead. Again. Just like in our mummery, you came with your potion and you healed me and the others. Doctor, I wanted to thank you."

"Yeah." The Doctor let go of his hand and stepped back, burying his fists in his pockets.

"So, you've found your box?" Allan asked.

The Doctor just nodded.

The young man sighed. "You're good to go then. So should I, it's just... I told Donna I wanted to stay and watch over you, keep vigil, when you were still sick, you know. But the truth is I didn't want to face what was out there. They say it's a nightmare."

"Yeah," the Doctor whispered.

"But now you're fine and I have to go," Allan said. "I have to find Thomas. He'll be at the Cooks, if he's still... No, he'll be there. He doesn't even know about Simon. So..."

"Yeah."

Donna shifted angrily. The Doctor, repeating just one word over and over again, suddenly started to irritate her. Allan also seemed to have lost his confidence under the stubborn gaze of the Doctor's stern eyes.

"So, it is a goodbye then, Doctor."

"Goodbye, Allan," the Doctor said.

"Will I ever see you again?"

The Doctor just shook his head.

"Oh, all right then." Allan made a little step back. "Fare you well, noble Donna."

"Take care of yourself, yeah?" She stepped forward and gave the young man a big hug.

"I will." Allan turned to the Doctor, standing still, hands deep in his pockets.

"Fare you well, kind Doctor."

Suddenly the Doctor reached out again and closed Allan's hand in both his hands, shaking his arm vigorously. He pulled the young man closer, and wrapped his arm around his shoulders. He seemed to be whispering his goodbye into his ear, then he let go of the surprised young man and walked quickly back to the ship. Donna's eyes moved from him to Allan, then back to the Doctor. She wrinkled her brow as she followed him to the TARDIS, but she didn't say a word.

When the incredible spectacle of the ships disappearance was over, Allan opened his hand and looked down at a tiny glass phial. Holding it in between his thumb and index finger, he lifted the phial to a streak of light coming from the outside. There seemed to be a small amount of a clear liquid inside.

"Five drops each, yeah?" the Doctor had told him.

Allan smiled and as he walked toward the dormitory's door, still a little bit woozy and overwhelmed with the blue box's final lightshow, he concealed the Doctor's gift safely in the palm of his hand.

"Just save someone."

* * *

**THE END OF EPISODE FOUR**

_THE VIRTUAL SEASON FIVE CONTINUES IN EPISODE FIVE_

**MOTHER NATURE**

* * *

"This is – honestly – this is _wizard_! Don't you think? _Wizard_! Donna Noble, citizen of the Earth, from Chiswick, London, in _EDEN_!"

The way she accented the last word suggested she found herself in an actual Paradise.

"Mmm..." said the Doctor, his face long with boredom.

***

"We've checked your Body Mass Index," the woman said gravely, "and you should know that you are on the verge of dangerous obesity."

"_What_?!" the Doctor exclaimed incredulously.

"You... should lose some pounds?" the woman whispered, avoiding his eye.

***

"'cause, you know, in Scotland, they fry them," Donna rambled. "They actually _deep_-fry them. Can you imagine? A deep-fried Mars bar? My friend, Mookie, yeah, she actually had a deep-fried salad. A _deep-fried salad_! That'll give you your one of five, won't it? Just, how _bunkers_ is that?!"

The man looked at her uncomprehendingly.

"I _like_ deep fried salad," he said. "Have you ever tried deep-fried jelly babies? They're just... exquisite!"

***

A terrible scream made Donna spring up from her recliner, both hands pressed to her chest. The Doctor was up already, struggling with sleeves of his white dressing gown (decorated with the Eden's logo of course). He briskly tied up the belt.

"At last!" he exclaimed.

And he was gone.

* * *

_That's it on the Plague then, folks! ;D. If you liked, feel invited to the episode five - Mother Nature, which, I hope, will not be as gloom-death-doom as the Pale Horse. Still, you can't avoid a fair share of crash-bang-kaboom, can you? :D:D:D _

_Thanks a lot for all the rewievs! You're brilliant!!!_


End file.
